UPDATE: This story has been updated to include information from a Saturday, March 20 press conference with Sheriffs Matt Gentry and Matt Moon.

A convicted murderer is back in custody 24 hours after he and three other inmates from the Cullman County Detention Center escaped the facility. Hanceville officers took Leo Chavez, 20, into custody Friday evening after a homeowner held the escapee at gunpoint until officers arrived.

Officer Zach Hightower said when he arrived the homeowner, Lawrence Baker, had Chavez on the ground at gunpoint. “He was just ready to go on back to the jail,” said Hightower.

Baker said he was eating supper when he saw Chavez walking down the driveway. “I grabbed my gun and come out and asked him if he was the one they were looking for,” Baker said in a Facebook video posted by Hanceville Mayor Kenneth Nail. Baker told him to get on the ground and called police.

A $10,000 reward had been offered for tips leading to the capture of Chavez who was sentenced in January to two consecutive life sentences, plus 10 years, for the murder of his mother, Adalberta Chavez Ruiz, and his father, Ricardo Santiago Gonzales in Blount County in 2017. Cullman Sheriff Matt Gentry said Baker will be collecting the reward money next week.

Both Gentry and Blount County Sheriff Matt Moon credited Baker with being a responsible gun owner and for taking Chavez into custody. “I don’t think Mr. Chavez would have been as willing to get down if it wasn’t for that .45,” said Moon at a press conference Saturday.

The Cullman County Detention Center was holding Chavez for Blount County as he awaited transfer to state prison.

He and the other inmates escaped from the Cullman County Detention Center at 6:33 p.m. Thursday as deputies were engaged in the evening shift change.

According to Gentry, the inmates escaped through an air vent beside the showers. Making their way through the building, they found a brick and metal wall managing to kick their way through and jumping from the second floor. Gentry said one escapee, Justin Long, broke his foot from the jump.

“They have 24 hours a day, seven days a week to think about how to try to do anything to get out,” said Gentry.

A nearby resident saw the four men crossing the parking lot and within minutes of their escape had called 911. Deputies and Cullman Police Department officers set up a perimeter in the area while deputies inside the facility conducted a head count.

“We can’t thank the community enough for their hard work in this case,” said Gentry. “Three minutes after their escape, we were getting 911 calls from residents.”

Two of the escapees, Tyler Dooley and Long, were back in custody within an hour of escaping.

Dooley, of Arab, was incarcerated waiting trial on murder charges in the death of Levi Benjamin Lawrence, 24, of Cullman. Long was in the detention center on a federal hold. Officers from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (ALEA), several sheriff’s offices and police departments and the U.S. Marshall’s Service have been involved in the search for the missing inmates.

Escapee Robert Alan Peak, who was incarcerated on drug charges, was captured near Berlin early Friday morning after police spotted him driving a stolen F-350 truck pulling a trailer. Officers pursued the truck for about 25 minutes along US 278 before using spike strips to stop him.

On Saturday, Gentry said Peak stole a 2004 Corvette from a nearby neighborhood. Officers pursued Peak, but lost him in Blount County. Gentry said Peak wrecked the Corvette, then stole the truck he was driving when officers arrested him. The Corvette was recovered Friday afternoon in Blount County.

“At that time, we were still unsure if Leo Chavez was with him at the time or not,” said Gentry. “That’s the reason you saw your deputies out in the community going house to house to house, any houses that had cameras. We were going to businesses, trying to catch which direction Leo Chavez had went to.”

He said they believed Chavez was still in the area around the correction center. “We know [they] had no plan. It was a spur of the moment action without a plan,” he said.

“One thing I’ve learned about inmates, none of them are marathon runners,” said Gentry. “What they want to do is get out and hide.”

Part of the search area included the railroad tracks, which is where Chavez came from to get to Baker’s driveway.

Gentry said it wasn’t just the many law enforcement agencies involved in the search that get credit for finding all four escapees within 24 hours, but the public as well. He said the public provided tips in response to updates the department issued through Nixle alerts and social media.

Chavez is now being held in Blount County. The other inmates could face up to 15 years on escape charges.  Gentry said the investigation into the escape is continuing.