Escaped murder suspect recaptured in northwest Indiana

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A murder suspect who escaped from a security company’s van while the vehicle was stopped at a McDonald’s in northwest Indiana was recaptured Wednesday morning after more than two weeks on the lam, authorities said.

Leon Taylor, 22, of Hammond, Indiana, was taken into custody by officers searching for him in neighboring East Chicago, Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez said, The Times of Northwest Indiana reported.

Details on the capture were not immediately released.

Taylor escaped Dec. 14 after the van stopped in Gary as an agent with REDI Transports of Green Bay, Wisconsin, was moving him from Texas via O’Hare International Airport to the Lake County Jail.

Taylor, who was arrested in Texas on Dec. 2, is a suspect in a murder in East Chicago and is also a suspect in five northwest Indiana armed robberies.

According to court records, he is accused of working with a 14-year-old boy to kill a Chicago man, Daniel Nitzsche, 52, on Nov. 19 outside an East Chicago building Nitzsche co-owned, The Times reported.

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