Police capture escaped southern Illinois prisoner

Illinois State Police on Wednesday morning captured an inmate who escaped from a southern Illinois prison on Tuesday afternoon, Illinois Department of Corrections officials said.

Marcus Battice, 21, was taken into custody without incident at about 7:30 a.m. on foot along Interstate 70 about 3 1/2 miles from Vandalia Correctional Center, IDOC spokesman Tom Shaer said. Battice was walking north on a gravel frontage road next to the highway when Illinois State Police apprehended him, Shaer said.

Vandalia prison's health care unit was to examine him before Battice was transferred to the maximum security Pontiac Correctional Center where he would be placed in segregation as an escapee, Shaer said.

Battice got over the fence at the Vandalia facility about 2 p.m. on Tuesday, officials said. Vandalia is about 70 miles northeast of St. Louis. Search dogs from the county sheriff's department were deployed in the search as well as staff from other state prisons.

Battice was serving a four-year sentence for unlawful possession of a stolen vehicle in Cook County. He was scheduled for release Jan. 18, 2015.

Department records indicate Battice was sentenced to three years in 2010 for burglary in DuPage County. Shaer said he graduated from the IDOC Impact Incarceration Program, known as "boot camp," and was discharged in October 2012.