Image: CNN

Rodney Long was a ruthless criminal dirtbag with no conscience or remorse. omaha.com reports that last Friday Long escaped from a minimum-security Iowa prison while serving a sentence for burglary. Long story short, the convict shot a deputy who tried to apprehend him. He then stole the deputy’s car and led police on a high-speed chase, finally taking an elderly couple hostage in their Bedford home. The couple was armed. “At about 2:10 a.m., Jerome Mauderly took a shotgun from the kitchen and shot Long in the chest. Rodney Long was what cops would call a ‘skell.’ Now he’s what we call a ‘corpse.’ At the risk of editorializing a hard news story, good riddance to bad rubbish.

CNN takes it from here:

An Iowa man shot and killed an escaped inmate on Tuesday after the convict held him and his wife hostage in their home, investigators said.

Jerome Mauderly, 71, and his wife, Carolyn, 66, were asleep when escaped inmate Rodney Long, 38, broke into their rural Bedford home a little after 10 p.m. on Monday, said Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation spokesman Mitch Mortvedt.

Long — who had allegedly shot a deputy pursuing him on Sunday — woke up the Mauderlys and disabled their landline phones except for a line in the couple’s bedroom. He then took a shotgun that Jerome Mauderly, a retired prison guard and farmer, had loaded that night and placed next to the bed before going to sleep.

Long took the shotgun from the bedroom and moved it to the kitchen. He held the Mauderlys hostage at gunpoint for about four hours while he rummaged through their home for supplies and used their cell phone.

Around 2 a.m. Tuesday, while Long was upstairs looking for supplies, Jerome Mauderly sneaked into the kitchen and recovered his shotgun, Mortvedt said. Carolyn Mauderly called 911 from their bedroom. When Long walked down the stairs, Jerome Mauderly shot him in the torso. Long was found lying face down in the kitchen, Mortvedt said.

Adding to the good news, police announced that the wounded officer is expected to recover, and that the Mauderlys will not be charged with any crime. “The Mauderlys feared for their life. They had a real fear that he was going to kill them,” Mortvedt said.

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52 COMMENTS

        • Because insisting that Americans be subjected to rationed, government healthcare while you yourself receive world class care that extends your life during inoperable brain cancer is classy. Ted Kennedy was a monster and we are better off without him.

        • Any form of insurance, public or private, will be “rationed.” Those lucky enough to be born from a golden womb can buy all the healthcare they want. I don’t really see the hypocrisy in that.

  3. This story can’t be accurate because Guns do not have the ability to EVER save anyone’s life. Guns are ONLY senseless killing machines with minds of their own that indiscriminately murder.

    This debate is settled and indisputable FACT!

    • And what you say would be absolutely true if Mr. Long was a good son who was mending his ways and turning his life around. However, shooting a deputy and taking a couple hostage does not add up to turning one’s life around.

      So I would say it was righteous self-defense.

      • But he shot the deputy the night before. It was probably dark, and he was scared of an unknown person following him….

        Then he took the couple hostage, clearly he didn’t have any intention of harming them. He was just down on his luck looking for a few things to see him by a rough time on his road to recovery.

        Clearly he is the victim here and the stand your ground laws need to be repealed in order to bring the homeowners to justice for killing a misunderstood, innocent man.

        ……I do believe I just hit my sarcasm quota for the month….

    • “This debate is settled and indisputable FACT!”

      Yes, but have thousands of scientists reached a consensus on that point? (/sarc)

  4. Where did a freshly escaped prisoner get a gun to shoot the deputy with? Maybe the old gentleman should look into a yappy dog for his house after this. Having a home defense gun does you little good if you’re sleeping soundly when the bad guy is standing over you. He could have easily killed the couple while they slept.

    scary event, I’m glad the right guy got killed.

    • He was serving 5 for B&E when he hopped the fence of the Min Security prison. He proceeded to burglarize the first home he came to. After that he was armed and shot the deputy, stole his truck and rolled it. Too bad he had to come along a retired Prison guard and farmer’s house. The guy probably had an 870 propped up behind the kitchen door like the rest of us did when the news of the convict went out of his presence in the area.

      Usually the gun is kept near the door for easy access of approaching vermin including people. Probably better they had one close to them in the bedroom too.

      • The homeowner had the shotgun next to his bed according to the story. The escaped criminal broke into their home and snatched the loaded shotgun from the bedroom before the homeowners awoke.

        • Reading comprehension, how does it work?

          The homeowner had one shotgun, which he placed next to the bed. Long broke in, took the shotgun from next to the bed, and secreted it in the kitchen. Later, the homeowner retrieved the shotgun from the kitchen and shot Long.

          Your entire premise of “870 propped behind the kitchen door” is complete conjecture.

        • To Cyrano,

          “He then took a shotgun that Jerome Mauderly, a retired prison guard and farmer, had loaded that night and placed next to the bed before going to sleep.

          Long took the shotgun from the bedroom and moved it to the kitchen.”

          That is straight from the article. The shotgun was kept by the bed. The convict took it to the kitchen. The homeowner retrieved it from the kitchen while the convict was upstairs. Convict came down the stairs and was shot. He died.

          Moral of the story? If you’re holding someone hostage, don’t leave the damn gun where they can get to it and blast you straight to hell.

          Or….Don’t mess with people who are armed. They are willing to defend themselves.

        • @Matt in FL. It is a bit of conjecture. It’s also born of experience from living in the locality of the crime. The CNN story has a lot of detail added that no other official or other unofficial source in the area has. The CNN guys are the only ones to mention the shotgun started under the bed. The official statements so far was the gun was always in the kitchen and the couple was surprised while sleeping. But what do I know, CNN must be clairvoyant.

  5. Here is a friendly suggestion. If you cannot afford a yappy little dog or a quality alarm system, at least consider inexpensive, temporary measures during situations like an escaped convict at large in your area.

    You cannot keep a determined person out of your home so don’t even worry about that. Rather, you want to know when a person is going to enter. And that means reinforced entry points and noise makers. To reinforce doors, simply prop a chair against the door knob like you have seen in cartoons. It will slow down an intruder and require them to make a lot more noise to enter. The best part? Just about everyone already has chairs in their home that will do the trick so that costs you nothing. Next, make noise makers and place them next to doors or windows. An open glass jar filled with marbles or even rocks, when knocked over, is incredibly loud. So are pots and lids. Balance that jar or pot/lid on a chair or TV tray so that a tiny push sends it over the edge and crashing to the floor.

    There are other possibilities as well depending on what you have at hand. Just use your imagination.

  6. This all happened in my neighboring Counties. While it had a happy ending, I’m a little PO’d @ how many LEOs
    it took just to chase and than lose him. They lost him after he rolled the car and ran away from them. Jeez Louise,
    was the the perp an ex Olympian?
    Props to Mr. Mauderly for doing the right thing. And for saving the State of Iowa untold $s prosecuting and housing this scum. And defending Mrs. Mauderly as well.

    • I wish there was only one last tax grabbing inmate. Even if it was true the government would spend the money saved on prisons on something else. They’d never give the tax payer a break.

  8. As to CNNs story: These are the same folks who disseminated a photo of 3 black youths as being the shooters in the OK Thrill Kill this week when it was 2 blacks and one white kid!.
    Just saying

  10. But he was such a good boy. Kind to his neighbors. Took in stray animals. Was studying to be a Buddhist monk. Helped old ladies across the street. Would have cured cancer. He could fart Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

    Oops, sorry. Wrong scvmbag. This one deserved to die.

  11. I don’t live in the vicinity of this shooting. Assuming there is no financial reward for properly removing the vital body fluids from an escapee….. does the Iowa Prison System have a pot of money to pay for cleaning the floor of this elderly couple’s kitchen?

    • In a “normal” clean up site, homeowners insurance pays. In this case, I’m betting the State of Iowa has a fund for such things. So I guess I will help out. He should have been shot in the back while fleeing the accident.

  14. “Adding to the good news, police announced that the wounded officer is expected to recover, and that the Mauderlys will not be charged with any crime.”

    Oh, Yea!!! Thank you, Criminal Justice system! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU….for contributing absolutely nothing & for not punishing me for saving my own life….can I go back to bed now?

  16. Another “victim” to be added to Hizzoner’s “death by gun violence” MAIG list…. oh wait. 🙂

  20. Poor Rodney, dead and gone
    Mourned by no one, short or long

    (Except MAIG and Bloomie the Short)

  21. was very happy to hear this yesterday on the news. always nice to hear a self defense story with a happy ending here in my own state. i wish the situation had never happened at all, of course, but glad the good guys came out on top.

  22. You stupid pro gun people. You’re all supposed to be racist homophobic white males! How can you sit here and celebrate a dead white man. You should all be angry that one of your people is dead!

    Can’t you live up to your stereotype ONCE?!?! Next you’ll all be telling me that minorities and women, the same people you’ve oppressed for generations actually own guns! And like them. SHEESH.

  23. Justice is served. Mr. Long, feel free to file an appeal with the Prince of Darkness or St. Peter, and I’m guessing the former.

  24. Last line summed it up nicely.

    Always a tragedy when someone dies, but one should not expect sympathy for one that does nothing but to prey on their fellow man, nor should they give any. Predators of all kinds come in all colors, creeds, sizes, origins, and orientations. They are all victims only of their own choices, and sooner or later they will, by the righteous indignation of their intended victims or by the arm of the law, be made to sleep in the bed that they alone made. That bed may be the thin, worn mattress in a six-by-eight hole in the wall, it may even be in the soft cradle of a wooden box six feet beneath the Earth. No matter where they are resigned to, they have no one else but themselves to blame.

    “Good riddance to bad rubbish” indeed.

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