A man wanted on suspicion of murder who was on the run for two months since he escaped from custody in Mississippi has been arrested hundreds of miles away in Chicago after an over 12-hour long SWAT standoff, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
Joshua Zimmerman, 30, escaped from custody from the DeSoto County courthouse in Mississippi, where he was scheduled for a hearing, on June 14, the DeSoto County Sheriff's Office said.
At the time, he was being held in the county on suspicion of armed robbery and attempted murder. He was also wanted in Texas on an accusation of murder committed in September and for a parole violation in Connecticut, the Marshals Service said.
After two months on the lam, he ended up in Chicago.
The Marshals Service, which took over the case, said that it had looked for Zimmerman in multiple states and that investigators “recently developed information that Zimmerman was in Chicago.”
From there, the Marshals Service's Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force identified Zimmerman in a seafood restaurant in the 2300 block of Madison Street on Chicago's West Side, where “it is believed he was working.”
During the arrest, Zimmerman retreated into the ceiling of the restaurant and barricaded himself, the Marshals Service said.
The Chicago police SWAT team also responded following a request to aid.
Zimmerman was the only person in the restaurant, DeSoto County Chief Sheriff’s Deputy Justin Smith said at a news conference Tuesday.
Officials said the standoff lasted over 12 hours until Zimmerman surrendered and was arrested at 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. ET) Wednesday.
The restaurant where Zimmerman barricaded himself is just half a mile away from the United Center, which was hosting the Democratic National Convention on Monday and Tuesday. However, “there is no connection or threat to the event or those attending,” the Marshals Service said.
Mississippi authorities intend to extradite him back to DeSoto County.
“We would like to get him back into our detention facility so that we can gather the remaining facts surrounding his escape,” Smith said.
Zimmerman walked out of the courthouse in June wearing pajamas, crossed the street to a gas station and convinced there a man to give him a ride to Memphis, Tennessee, NBC Chicago reported. It was believed that he did not have an accomplice in his escape.
DeSoto County Sheriff Thomas E. Tuggle said in a statement Wednesday that the sheriff's team is on the ground in Chicago, “fully prepared to commence the next phase of our investigation.”
A $20,000 reward had been offered for information locating Zimmerman, whom the Marshals Service described as “armed and very dangerous.”