Escaped murderer Nash captured on Route 15

Arnold Nash, a convicted murderer who escaped from Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston last week, has been captured.

Arnold Nash

Nash, 65, was taken into custody by a Piscataquis County sheriff’s deputy about 7 a.m. Tuesday when he was spotted walking along Route 15, also known as the Bangor Road, in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine Department of Public Safety spokesman Stephen McCausland said. The Dover-Foxcroft Police Department said Nash had been walking in the direction of Mountain View when he was captured.

He was taken to Piscataquis County Jail in Dover-Foxcroft, McCausland said.

No further details about his arrest were immediately available.

Nash had just 14 months left on his murder sentence when he walked away from Mountain View, Maine Corrections Commissioner Joseph Fitzpatrick told reporters on Monday.

Nash was originally sentenced to 45 years in prison in 1992 for the beating death of a disabled neighbor in Sullivan in 1991.

While in prison, Nash had developed a record good enough to get his sentence reduced and a transfer to Downeast Correctional Facility in Machiasport a year ago.

Nash spent six months at Downeast before his transfer to Mountain View in February, when the Down East prison was abruptly closed.

On Monday, Fitzpatrick defended correctional officials’ decision to place Nash in minimum-security facilities, saying it is safer to have offenders serve out their last years at step-down facilities than in stricter confinement.

“Mr. Nash was being treated as any other individual would have been treated. If you look at the crime, I think it was horrific,” Fitzpatrick said. “At the same time, part of the mission of the department of corrections is to — to the best of our ability — mitigate the risks before we return people to the community.”