Madonna Stalker Captured: Robert Dewey Hoskins Escaped Mental Institutition

Madonna can breathe easy knowing that Robert Dewey Hoskins, her convicted stalker, has been captured by police a week after he escaped from a Southern California mental institution.

Los Angeles police spokesman Richard French told The Associated Press that Hoskins was found Friday not far from Metropolitan State Hospital, where he escaped. Police did not comment on what Hoskins had been doing while he was on the loose, and had earlier refused to explain how Hoskins escaped or explain why the hospital waited several days to report the incident.

Hoskins, 54, walked away from Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk on Feb. 3, according to a KCAL9 report.

When he is not taking his medications, he is extremely psychotic and very violent, LAPD officer Karen Rayner told KCAL9.

Because of the level of psychosis he always has the potential to become violent, Rayner cautioned.

Hoskins was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1995 after trespassing at Madonna's Hollywood Hills home and threatening the pop star and her employees.

According to an account published by Los Angeles District Deputy Attorney Rhonda Saunders, Hoskins scaled a wall surrounding Madonna's home on three separate occasions beginning in the spring of 1995. The third time, Hoskins threatened to kill a bodyguard, Basil Stephens. After a struggle over the bodyguard's gun, Stephens shot Hoskins twice in the abdomen, and he was taken into custody.

Hoskins was put on trial and found guilty of stalking, assault, and making terrorist threats. While on trial, he vandalized his cell with messages about Madonna, but when confronted by a sheriff's deputy about the graffiti, he blamed Madonna for writing the messages and said he was going to slice the lying bitch's throat from ear to ear.

Hoskins has also made threatening statements about slitting Halle Berry's throat.

The LAPD told the Los Angeles Times that Hoskins had an unspecific run-in with law enforcement after being released from state prison, which led to his incarceration at Metropolitan State Hospital.