2nd high-rise jail escapee caught

— Weeks after a pair of bank robbers made a daring escape from a downtown Chicago high-rise jail, police said Friday that they captured the last of the two men but didn’t notice him at first because he had disguised himself as an older person.

Kenneth Conley was arrested in the Chicago suburb of Palos Hills after a short foot chase. Palos Hills Deputy Chief James Boie said Conley was dressed like an old man, wearing a beret and glasses and walking with a limp when officers approached him.

He said Conley pushed one of the officers and led them on a foot chase. He said the fleeing man tried to break into an apartment to avoid being captured but was caught and had a BB gun in his possession.

Conley, 38, escaped the Metropolitan Correctional Center last month with Joseph “Jose” Banks, apparently by smashing a hole in a wall at the bottom of a narrow cell window and squeezing through before scaling down about 20 stories using a knotted rope made out of bedsheets.

Banks was arrested two days later at a home on Chicago’s North Side, about five miles from the jail.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/05/2013

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