By Emily S. Achenbaum
Chicago Tribune
CHICAGO — A woman convicted of two murders who escaped from an Indiana prison in August was captured in Chicago just hours after the television show “America’s Most Wanted” profiled her case, authorities said Sunday.
Chicago police received an anonymous tip Saturday that Sarah Jo Pender was in an apartment in the 2200 block of West Farwell Avenue on the Far North Side. Tactical officers found her there and took her into custody without incident, police said, adding they did not know how long she had been living in Chicago or whether anyone here was helping her.
Pender, 29, had been on the lam for nearly 5 months, and Indiana authorities said they considered her armed and extremely dangerous. The U.S. marshals named her to its 15 Most Wanted Fugitives list, making her the only woman on the list at the time.
She escaped from medium-security Rockville Correctional Facility on Aug. 4, hiding in the back of a state prison vehicle driven by a prison guard whom authorities have charged with aiding her. An Indianapolis woman also is alleged to have helped Pender once she left the prison. Pender was serving a 110-year sentence for the 2000 shotgun murders of roommates Andrew Cataldi and Tricia Nordman. Indiana court records say Pender and her then-boyfriend and fourth roommate, Richard “Rick” Hull Jr., bought a twelve-gauge shotgun at Wal-Mart and killed the two over drug money, then dumped the bodies behind a Teamsters local union in Marion County, Ind., not far from their home.
Pender and Hull were convicted, with Hull being sentenced to 75 years.
Pender appeared in Cook County bond court Sunday wearing a Purdue sweat shirt, jeans and her red hair cut chin-length. She was ordered held without bail and is expected to have an extradition hearing this week.
“America’s Most Wanted” said on its Web site that Pender was living in Chicago under the fake name “Ashley Thompson.”
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