David Bemben

BUTLER TWP — The not-so-great escape ended about two hours after it began.

The runaway, 37-year-old David C. Bemben, was captured Tuesday afternoon after a Butler Township police officer noticed him not far from his apartment in Lyndora — the scene of the alleged crime.

State constables and probation officers went looking for Bemben at about 8:45 a.m., at the home on the 600 block of Bessemer Avenue, where authorities say he lives with his girlfriend. He was wanted on a traffic warrant and probation violations.

“But they couldn't get in (the apartment),” said Albert Claypoole, referring to the two constables and two probation officers.

Claypoole lives nearby and was on the job working as a maintenance man for John Marten, a landlord who owns the building where Bemben lives. He walked the constables and probation officers up two sets of rickety steps to the apartment.

No one answered the door, which was locked.

Claypoole called Marten, who got there about 10 minutes later. But he, too, couldn't get in — even with the key. The door had apparently been barricaded shut from the inside.

Marten gave officers permission to go through the window. They did and found Bemben's girlfriend, 40-year-old Cheyenne A. Karch. But he was no where to be found.

The officers searched high and low,

“It took about an hour before we found him,” said Constable Richard Daubner, “in the attic.”

Marten helped out, fetching a ladder before Bemben was taken down. He and Karch were cuffed, hands behind their backs.

But as the officers were walking down the second set of unsteady steps, Bemben took off running. He had an immediate getaway route — the woods behind his apartment building.

Authorities speculated that he might have been trying to get to his father's house, which is nearby.

Karch was taken to the Butler County Prison and jailed on a probation detainer.

Butler Township and Butler police officers quickly joined in the search for Bemben. Middlesex Township police were also called to help with their tracking dog.

The search proved futile until Bemben decided to try and make it back to his apartment, police said, possibly for a set of bolt cutters to get his handcuffs off.

By then, authorities said, he had managed to get his cuffed hands in front of him.

Daubner said the absconder, in his return trip home, apparently tried to go unnoticed. He had his hooded sweat shirt pulled up.

But a Butler Township police officer shortly before 1 p.m. spotted him on Bessemer Avenue, about a block from his apartment.

Bemben was standing behind a house, said Butler Township police Lt. Matthew Pearson. He tried running again but this time police nabbed him immediately.

Said Daubner, “I just feel good that he's caught.”

He was taken to the police station and processed before he was arraigned by District Judge Kevin O'Donnell on a felony charge of escape and a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest. Bemben was placed in the Butler County Prison in lieu of $15,000 bail. His preliminary hearing has been scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Nov. 30 before O'Donnell.