Escapee: No Leads To Follow

The search for a Nebraska man who escaped custody along Interstate 90 has gone cold.

Oscar Herrara-Menjivar, accused of rape in Nebraska, has eluded capture for more than three weeks.

Herrara-Menjivar escaped from an inmate transport van along I-90 when the driver stopped for gas at the Fuel Mart near the Spencer interchange.

After five days on the run, he surfaced in Dolton where he asked a woman for directions to Denver.

More than three weeks since Herrara-Menjivar escaped, law enforcement say no new leads are coming in.

"That's what is interesting about this individual. He kind of fell off the face of the earth right now," Turner County Sheriff Byron Nogelmeier said.

Herrara-Menjivar was last seen heading into a cornfield south of Dolton. Within minutes, Nogelmeier had deputies in the area and quickly organized two planes, search dogs and more than 60 officers.

Without new leads in the case, Nogelmeier says the search for the escapee has gone dormant. However, he says it's a possibility farmers are going to find his remains in a cornfield when they start to harvest this fall.

Nogelmeier says one of two things happened: it's possible Herrara-Menjivar made a clean get-away and is no longer in South Dakota. But without knowing someone in the area, Nogelmeier says that would be difficult.

"So could we lean toward the other that he might not have made it out of a field? He was hunkered down and he got over heated and nature took its course on him? I don't know," Nogelmeier said.

Nogelmeier has been in contact with DCI and all the other law enforcement agencies involved in the search and none of them have received calls or leads of any kind that explain where Herrara-Menjivar might be.