(NewsNation) — A Pennsylvania couple checking on what their dog was barking at led to the capture of prison escapee Michael Burham on Saturday.
Ron and Cindy Ecklund were alerted to Burham’s presence on their property when their dog Tucker went to the creek and wouldn’t come back.
“He (Tucker) took off running for the creek. Tucker did bark and I tried to call him back, and he wouldn’t come. Usually, he’ll come back when I call him,” Ron told “NewsNation Prime.”
When Ron and Cindy went to check on Tucker, they encountered Burham.
“Michael [Burham] stood up and I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He says, ‘camping.'”
The couple returned to the golf cart they were using and drove back and contacted authorities.
Burham, 34, was captured nine days after he fled the Warren County jail on July 6 by climbing on exercise equipment, going through a window and scaling down a rope fashioned from jail bedding, authorities said.
Burham, tracked through the woods after that by searchers with the help of two dogs, encountered troopers on a road who were part of a perimeter set up, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, the deputy commissioner of Operations for the Pennsylvania State Police. He went prone and tried to hide but was approached from behind by federal marshals, border patrol and state police and taken into custody at gunpoint, Bivens said.
Burham looked “tired and worn-out, as we thought he might” and was dirty and wet, still wearing his jail-issued pants turned inside out. Authorities did not find a weapon they feared he had since ammunition had been found in small stockpiles linked to him by DNA, but the area was being searched to make sure he hadn’t hidden one, Bivens said.
Burham has been in jail on $1 million bail and was charged with kidnapping, burglary and other counts. Authorities warned while he was missing that he was considered armed and dangerous. More than 200 state, federal and local officers participated in the search for Burham, and up to $22,000 in reward money had been posted, Bivens said.
It is unclear whether Burham will return to the same prison where he was previously held or be transferred to another location.