Convicted Madonna stalker who escaped hospital caught

By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A man who was convicted in 1996 of stalking and threatening pop star Madonna was apprehended on Friday, a week after escaping from a mental hospital, police said.

Robert Dewey Hoskins, 54, was taken into custody at about 9 a.m., "not too far" from Metropolitan State Hospital, Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Andrew French said.

French said he had no further information on the capture of Hoskins, who walked away unnoticed from the mental health facility on February 3.

Hoskins was being returned to the hospital, authorities said.

Hoskins was sentenced to 10 years behind bars in 1996 after being arrested for scaling a wall around the singer's home in the Hollywood Hills and threatening to slit her throat.

Madonna testified during trial that she had nightmares about the homeless man from Oregon after seeing him near her home in 1995.

She said her bodyguard told her Hoskins claimed she was supposed to be his wife, and "if he couldn't have me, he was going to slice my throat from ear to ear."

While Madonna was away from her home and in Florida later that year, Hoskins scaled the perimeter wall there, jumped into her pool and was eventually shot twice by a security guard.

Upon his release from prison, Hoskins was sent to a California hospital. He was eventually let go but was arrested again in July 2011 and sent to a different health facility in the Los Angeles-area community of Norwalk.

Police searching for Hoskins since his escape from the mental hospital had described him as highly psychotic with violent tendencies when not taking medication.

(Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis)