TACOMA, Wash. — UPDATE, Oct. 10: Convicted rapist Ronald Clayton, who was on the run, was arrested Thursday morning in Enumclaw.
The Pierce County Sheriff's Office credited "good old-fashioned police work" by the Department of Corrections and U.S. Marshals with help at the scene by Enumclaw police.
Clayton was found with meth and is being held on the escape warrant and for investigation of drug possession, according to the Sheriff's Office.
ORIGINAL TEXT: Ronald Clayton was 17 years old when he attempted to rape and murder a neighbor at gunpoint. That was in 1995. Now 41, Clayton is out of prison and on the run.
Clayton was supposed to be staying at the Rescue Mission in Tacoma and wear an electronic ankle monitor. But shortly after he arrived, he disappeared.
“After a few days he cut off his ankle bracelet, now we don’t know where he’s at,” said Pierce County Sheriff’s spokesman detective Ed Troyer.
Clayton’s crime 24 years ago was violent.
He went to the apartment of a female neighbor in May 1995 and “pointed a .22 caliber revolver at the victim when she opened the door,” according to a probable cause affidavit filed at the time. “He forced her into her bedroom and demanded she undress,” where he attempted to rape her. After taping her hands behind her back, “Clayton became very angry because the woman refused to cooperate and leave with him,” the affidavit continues. He took a cable cord from the TV and attempted to strangle the victim with it. The defendant stated that he was killing her, that he was going to kill her since she would not go with him.
The woman survived and Clayton was convicted of first-degree assault. Though it's been decades since his crime he is still considered dangerous.
“This is somebody who has been in prison for a long time and he had just gotten out,” Troyer said. “We know that he was hanging around some of the homeless camps and shelters.”
Clayton was released briefly in 2013 but ordered back to prison after failing to register as a sex offender.
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