Hostages Kill Captor

Hostages kill captor — not the way a standoff typically ends, but that’s what reports out of Iowa have stated.  USA Today reported that escaped inmate Rodney Eugene Long, 38, had broken out of the Clarinda Correctional Facility and had been on the run since Friday evening. On Monday, he took an elderly couple hostage at approximately 10:15 pm CST.

Jerome Mauderly, a 71-year-old retired prison guard, and his wife Carolyn, 66, were sleeping in the bedroom of their small, one-story home at the time.  Long held the couple hostage for around four hours with a semi-automatic handgun in his possession. During that time, he disabled their landline phone and called an unspecified person on the couple’s cell phone. However, he didn’t account for the Mauderlys owning a shotgun.

“As the situation wore on, a decision was made by the Mauderlys that they were going to defend themselves,” said Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation special agent-in-charge Mitch Mortvedt.

According to authorities, Jerome fired on Long while the escaped convict was in the couple’s kitchen. Carolyn called 911 at approximately 2:10 am on Tuesday. Police found Long lying face down on the floor with a single gunshot wound.  Long allegedly shot a Taylor County deputy (approximately 20 miles from the prison) on Sunday night. The deputy, 33-year-old Dan Wyckoff, is in stable condition in an Omaha, Nebraska, hospital.