LAS VEGAS (AP) — Authorities were on Tuesday looking for a 42-year-old convicted bombmaker who escaped from a Nevada prison where he was serving a life sentence for a deadly 2007 explosion outside a Las Vegas Strip resort.
Gov. Steve Sisolak ordered an investigation into the incident after saying Tuesday night that his office learned the escapee had been missing from the medium-security prison since the start of the weekend.
“This is unacceptable,” Sisolak said in a statement.
Officials only realized Porfirio Duarte-Herrera on Tuesday morning was missing during a head count at the Southern Desert Correctional Center near Las Vegas. A statement from the state Department of Corrections said search teams were looking for him.
Duarte-Herrera, from Nicaragua, was convicted in 2010 of killing a hot dog vendor using a motion-activated bomb in a coffee cup on top of a parked car in the Luxor hotel-casino.
Records show his co-accused, Omar Rueda-Denvers, remained in custody on Tuesday. The 47-year-old Guatemalan is serving a life sentence in another Nevada prison for murder, attempted murder, explosives and other charges.
A Clark County District Court jury spared both men the death penalty in the murder of Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio, whom prosecutors have identified as the boyfriend of Rueda-Denvers’ ex-girlfriend.
Prosecutors said jealousy was the motive for the attack on the upper deck of a two-story car park. The explosion initially raised fears of a terrorist attack in the strip.
Officials described Duarte-Herrera as 5-foot-4, 135 pounds, with brown eyes and brown hair.
Sisolak said his office has directed corrections officials to “conduct and complete a thorough investigation of this event as quickly as possible.”
“This type of security breach cannot be allowed and those responsible will be held accountable,” he said.