LOS ANGELES — A paroled sex offender was captured two days after he led police on an hours-long chase through Southern California in a motor home with his two young children inside before eluding authorities in a cloud of dust, sheriff’s officials said Thursday.
Stephen Houk, 46, was arrested Thursday afternoon in Barstow. He was hiding in an empty rail car at a rail yard and was taken into custody peacefully by detectives from the Los Angeles County sheriff’s Fugitive Task Force, according to a department statement.
Houk was taken to the Lancaster sheriff’s station and booked on suspicion of kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats, domestic violence and other crimes, the statement said.
Houk, who was on parole for felony sodomy in Oregon, led police on a chase in a motor home Tuesday after Los Angeles sheriff’s deputies tried to talk to him about a report that he had threatened his wife.