A 71-year-old fugitive rapist was caught after 30 years on the run due to one small mistake, according to recently released police body camera video.
Police officers in West Des Moines, Iowa, stopped the man eventually identified as George Hartleroad in late June for failing to have a rear reflector on his bicycle, KCCI reported Thursday.
Video footage shows the officers speaking with Hartleroad, who reportedly gave them a false name and social security number as they worked to gather his information, according to WISN. However, the officers soon realized the name he gave belonged to a deceased person and asked him for the truth, which he then divulged.
“None of us are mad at you, I’m just baffled that law enforcement has let you go for 30 years,” one of the officers tells Hartleroad, who was wanted in Wisconsin, as he sits on the curb.
The outlet said that in 1983 he held a woman at knifepoint to perform sexual acts, tied her to a tree, and left her there “for dead.” But she was later found alive by two other women.
Hartleroad reportedly spent five years in prison before he eventually escaped from a halfway house, which began his time on the run, USA Today reported Thursday.
“I’m delighted that he’s been recaptured. I’m surprised that he was still alive,” the now retired investigator who led the investigation on the 1983 case, Bill Glass, told WISN News. He praised the officers for their efforts, stating, “This is what good police work is. When things don’t check out, don’t just give up. Keep digging.”
Hartleroad, who told police he is homeless, is being held at the Dane County Jail in Madison, Wisconsin, per the Today article.
Images show him with his bicycle and what appear to be full trash bags strapped to it:
Social media users shared their thoughts on the bust, one person writing, “And this is why the cops take traffic stops seriously.”
“Broken windows policing at its finest,” another user commented.