The second inmate who made a daring escape last month from a high-rise federal jail in the South Loop was captured today in South Suburban Palos Hills, according to FBI officials.
Kenneth Conley, a convicted bank robber, was awaiting sentencing when he and cellmate Joseph “Jose” Banks scaled down the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Dec. 18 with a rope fashioned from bedsheets.
FBI Spokeswoman Joan Hyde said Conley was apprehended at an apartment complex at about 4 p.m. by Palos Hills police.
Conley’s mother, Sandra, answered the phone at her Tinley Park home this evening and said she had heard of her son’s arrest but had no details or comment.
“I’m just glad it’s over. That’s my only comment,” she said.
A law enforcement source said FBI agents and deputy U.S. Marshals returned to the area around Palos Hills this morning to canvass and talk to residents because Conley had been spotted there since his escape and was known to have contacts in the south suburbs.
By late afternoon a 911 call was placed to Palos Hills police reporting a sighting of Conley, possibly a result of the canvass, the source said.
Banks was apprehended late at night on Dec. 20 less than five miles from the jail in the home of a boyhood friend on the North Side.
Banks and Conley were last accounted for during a routine bed check, authorities said. About 7 a.m. the next day, jail employees arriving for work saw ropes made from bedsheets dangling from a hole in the wall near the 15th floor and down the south side of the facade.
The two had put clothing and sheets under blankets in their beds to throw off guards making nighttime checks and removed a cinder block to create an opening wide enough to slide through, authorities said.
The FBI said a surveillance camera a few blocks from the jail showed the two, wearing light-colored clothing, hailing a taxi at Congress Parkway and Michigan Avenue. They also appeared to be wearing backpacks, according to the FBI.
The daring escape was an embarrassment for the U.S. Bureau of Prisons and a rarity for the Metropolitan Correctional Center, where the only previous successful escape took place in 1985.
A high-ranking employee in the facility told the Tribune that video surveillance had captured the men making their descent, but that the guard who was supposed to be watching the video monitors for suspicious activity may have been called away on other duties.
asweeney@tribune.com
jmeisner@tribune.com
FBI: 2nd escaped bank robber caught in Palos Hills
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FBI: 2nd escaped bank robber caught in Palos Hills
