Inmate captured in Salt Lake City

Roosevelt County jail escapee Robert Claudio was captured without incident Tuesday afternoon in Salt Lake City, according to the Roosevelt County Sheriff’s Office.

Claudio, 31, who was being held on an aggravated battery charge, escaped late Friday night with two other men. Claudio was also on parole for a homicide committed as a juvenile in 1999, according to a Teller County, Colo., deputy.

Claudio and his girlfriend Melissa Arguello, 36, were apprehended by agents with the U.S. Marshals Service around 3 p.m. Tuesday.link

Roosevelt County Sheriff Darren Hooker said he is still gathering information from U.S. Marshals and authorities in that area on their arrests in the city of more than 1.1 million.

“We don’t know why (they chose to got to Salt Lake City), it’s very surprising based on what we speculated,” said Hooker, who previously said possible leads pointed them to Colorado. “We haven’t interviewed or talk to (Claudio and Arguello) or have any idea.”

Claudio was on parole in Colorado on a murder conviction he received as a juvenile in Teller County in 1999, according to a Teller County sheriff’s deputy.

Hooker added it’s believed that the suspects traveled to Utah in a white four-door vehicle owned by Arguello. He said Arguello appears to be Claudio’s only accomplice in his escape.

Claudio and Arguello are being held in the Salt Lake County Detention Center and will be returned to New Mexico once extradition is completed, according to Hooker. He said it is unknown how long the process will take. Arguello’s bond is set at $50,000 and Claudio does not have the option to bond out when he returns.

Claudio, Abran Baeza, 22, and Noel Webb, 32, escaped through the roof of the Roosevelt County Detention Center by using a metal leg of a jail bed to create a hole in the jail’s ceiling and gain access to the roof. Video then showed the men use a metal pipe to get down to the ground and hop a fence and run.

Baeza and Webb were caught hours later at an M Place residence.

Their escape was the second in three months and police say the trio mimicked the escape that happened in June.

The jail remains on lockdown, according to the jail’s administrator and he is reviewing ways he and his staff can strengthen security at the jail.