St. Louis Post-Dispatch
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — A St. Louis County jail inmate who escaped from a hospital Saturday has been arrested at a mobile home park near Festus, police said.
He was taken into custody about noon Wednesday in the 1100 block of Sunset Pointe Drive near Festus, according to St. Louis County police.
The inmate, Bruce Brutsman, 36, escaped Saturday morning from St. Mary’s Hospital in Richmond Heights. Jailers had taken Brutsman to the hospital at about 9:30 a.m., police say, after he allegedly swallowed a battery while in custody at the St. Louis County jail.
Authorities have released few details of his escape, but say he ran out of St. Mary’s wearing hospital scrubs. He briefly confronted a woman and her daughter in a neighborhood near the hospital, telling them someone was chasing him. The woman called police, and Brutsman disappeared before officers arrived.
At about 11 a.m. Saturday, police say, he stole a 1997 Toyota Tercel from outside an Imo’s pizzeria at 5806 South Hampton Avenue. It wasn’t clear how he got to the pizza shop from St. Mary’s.
The pizza delivery car was found abandoned Wednesday morning in the 1100 block of Salisbury Street, near Interstate 70 and the foot of the McKinley Bridge to Illinois. Hours later, police announced they had arrested Brutsman in the Festus area.
Brutsman, of the 4600 block of Weber Terrace Drive in the Affton area, had originally been held on charges of burglary and other property crimes.
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