The manhunt for escaped convict Alberto Morales ended early Saturday in a hail of gunfire as the fugitive was cornered by police and shot and killed in a small town in Texas.
Authorities said Morales, who had somehow slipped out of his handcuffs since escaping police Monday, lunged at the officers with wooden sticks, according to Texas authorities.
Morales, 41, had been on the run since overpowering a Miami-Dade police detective, stabbing him with his eyeglasses and disappearing from a Walmart in a Dallas suburb. Two Miami-Dade detectives had been escorting Morales, a violent sex offender, to a Las Vegas prison at the time of his escape to finish serving a 30-years-to-life prison term.
“Obviously, we are very relieved,’’ Miami-Dade Deputy Mayor Genaro “Chip” Iglesias said Saturday. “We are relieved that he will not be able to hurt anybody else.’’
The detective, Jaime Pardinas, survived but suffered a collapsed lung. He is recovering at a Dallas-area hospital.
