A convicted pedophile who fled the state six weeks ago while on supervised release has been captured 1,600 miles to the south and just north of the border with Mexico, a Minnesota corrections spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Jonah J. Hawkins, 27, of Halstad in northwestern Minnesota, was arrested Friday in Starr County, Texas, said Sarah Fitzgerald, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Starr County sits at the very southern tip of Texas, separated from Mexico by the Rio Grande.
Fitzgerald did not disclose details about what led authorities to Hawkins.
Hawkins had been unaccounted for since June 27, having last been seen leaving his home in Halstad, the state Department of Corrections said. Hawkins is a Level 3 predatory offender, putting him in a classification that ranks him as the most likely to reoffend.
The agency waited a month before alerting the public to Hawkins being on the run because "our investigators have a process they work through that usually turns these offenders up quickly," Fitzgerald said when the department first disclosed that he was on the run.
Fitzgerald said Hawkins was originally on electronic monitoring when he came out of prison, but he was past that part of his supervision when he fled.
Hawkins' criminal history includes sexual contact in Cass County, N.D., with a 3-year-old girl he was familiar with, and he has admitted to similar conduct with other girls.
