BILLINGS — A woman who escaped from the Montana Women’s Prison in Billings has been captured.
Members of a U.S. Marshals Service violent offender task force arrested Lisa Anne Nester, 50, after she was found near the Yellowstone County sheriff’s office in Billings on Saturday. She was taken into custody without incident and had not been considered a threat to public safety, the Montana Department of Corrections said.
Nester had been discovered missing from the prison at about 3:30 p.m. Friday. Department of Corrections spokesperson Alexandria Klapmeier declined to release details on how she escaped.
It was the first escape from the prison since 2016, when a woman escaped by scaling a fence and was caught eight months later in Oregon, according according to The Billings Gazette.
Nester’s criminal record includes a June 2015 escape from a pre-release program in Cascade County, Montana Women’s Prison Warden Jennie Hansen said.
Nester had been sentenced to three years in prison in April for the 2015 escape and three years for a failure to register as a sex offender, according to Department of Corrections records. In 2013 Nester was sentenced to five years after being convicted of assault on a minor in Teton County.
She was being held Monday at the Yellowstone County jail on suspicion of felony escape.
She was reported to have connections in Carter, Montana and Grenora, North Dakota.