Sex offender recaptured after escape from St. Louis County hospital

A convicted child sex offender who escaped from a St. Louis County, Missouri, hospital on foot early Thursday has been recaptured, police said.

Tommy Wayne Boyd, 45, a prisoner at Potosi Correctional Facility, was recaptured on Watson Road, northeast of Mercy Hospital South, where he escaped, St. Louis County police said shortly after 8 p.m.

Officers from the Affton Southwest Precinct were alerted around 4:30 a.m. that he had fled.

Boyd was being guarded by two Missouri Corrections Department officers when he escaped, a hospital spokesperson said in a statement.

"There was no physical confrontation, no one was hurt and video surveillance shows the escapee leaving the hospital," the statement said. "While there is no evidence he is still on the hospital campus, to ensure the safety of everyone, we are conducting a complete search of all our buildings."

A photo released by police showed Boyd walking down a hallway in the hospital wearing a black sweatshirt or jacket, shorts and orange slippers.

He was recaptured without incident by a county police department team that was following up on a lead, Sgt. Tracy Panus, a police spokesperson, said in an email.

Boyd is serving a 30-year sentence for statutory sodomy, police said. The State Highway Patrol, which maintains the state’s sex offender registry, said Boyd committed first-degree statutory sodomy in October 1996, when the victim was 11 and he was 18.

Boyd was taken to the hospital Wednesday for treatment, police said.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com