A convicted bomb maker serving life in prison for a deadly 2007 explosion outside a Las Vegas Strip resort has allegedly escaped from a Nevada state prison, officials said on Tuesday.
According to a news release, medium-security inmate Porfirio Duarte-Herrera, 42, was determined missing from Southern Desert Correctional Center outside Las Vegas, Nevada during the 7 a.m. head count.
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Nevada Department of Corrections (NDOC) said that escape procedures were initiated approximately at 8 a.m., and search teams remain in effect.
Duarte-Herrera is an undocumented immigrant from Nicaragua who was sentenced to life in prison after a 2007 bombing in the parking garage of the Luxor Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The bombing killed 27-year-old Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio.
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Prosecutors said that Duarte-Herrera conspired to build a metal pipe bomb to kill his ex-girlfriend and her new lover, Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio. The 27-year-old died in the explosion when he unwittingly picked up the motion-activated bomb inside a coffee cup on top of his car after his shift at Luxor.
He was also found guilty of attempted murder, bomb-making, bomb possession and destruction of property in a 2006 Halloween blast that destroyed a parked pickup truck outside a Home Depot store east of downtown Las Vegas.
According to the release, Duarte-Herrera arrived at the Nevada Department of Corrections on February 18, 2010, from Clark County. He is serving a sentence life sentence for murder with use of deadly weapon.
"This is unacceptable," Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak said in a statement. "My office has ordered NDOC to conduct and complete a thorough investigation into this event as quickly as possible. This kind of security lapse cannot be permitted and those responsible will be held accountable."
Duarte-Herrera is described as being 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighing 135 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes.
