Escaped Inmate Killed by His 71-Year-Old Hostage

An escaped inmate on the run from police took a retired couple hostage in their rural home, only to be shot and killed by one of his captives yesterday. Turns out, Rodney Long, 38, had managed to break into the house of ... a former prison guard. Long, who was serving time for third-degree burglary (though not at the same prison hostage Jerome Mauderly had worked), had escaped prison Friday morning and allegedly shot a deputy chasing him down on Sunday. Shortly after 10pm on Monday, he took the 71-year-old and wife Carolyn, 66, hostage after finding the couple asleep in their isolated house near Bedford, Iowa, reports the Des Moines Register.

Long confiscated the loaded shotgun Jerome Mauderly had put next to his bed and disabled their landline phones (or so he thought), reports CNN. When Long left the couple alone to look for supplies upstairs around 2am, the Mauderlys sprang into action: Carolyn called 911 on a bedroom phone Long had missed, while Jerome retrieved his shotgun. When Long came back, Jerome shot him in the torso, killing him. The couple will not be charged. "The Mauderlys feared for their life," says a state Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman. "They had a real fear that he was going to kill them." (More escaped criminal stories.)