Escaped Killer Is Dead in Texas, Officials Say

One of the most dramatic manhunts in Texas history ended late Thursday when a convicted murderer who had escaped from a prison bus last month was killed — just hours after he became the prime suspect in the killing of five people at a home earlier in the day, the authorities said.

The convict, Gonzalo Artemio Lopez, was “captured and deceased,” the Leon County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post on Thursday night. He had been the prime suspect in the murder of four children and one adult whose bodies were discovered on Thursday at a home near where he had escaped in May.

When he escaped from a prison bus on May 12, Mr. Lopez, 46, had been serving sentences for crimes that include killing a man with a pickax. After his escape, he topped the state’s most wanted list, and the authorities offered $50,000 in exchange for information leading to his arrest and conviction.

The killings of the five people most likely occurred on Thursday afternoon and the home — near Centerville, a city about halfway between Houston and Dallas — was within a perimeter where law enforcement officials had been searching for Mr. Lopez since his escape, Jason Clark, the chief of staff at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, told reporters at a news conference. The home was a weekend residence used by a family from Houston and had been repeatedly searched since the escape, he said.

Mr. Clark said that the authorities had evidence that Mr. Lopez had broken into the home and committed the murders, but he did not provide details or say how the victims had been killed. Mr. Lopez was thought to have used the missing vehicle, a white Chevrolet Silverado, to drive out of the area, he added.

The bus Mr. Lopez escaped from last month had been transporting him and 15 other inmates to a medical appointment. As it approached Centerville, a city about halfway between Houston and Dallas on Interstate 45, he broke free of his shackles, attacked the driver and drove the bus for a mile before losing control and escaping into a cow pasture.

Hundreds of agents from local and national law enforcement groups participated in a manhunt using horses, police dogs and helicopters.

“This is probably one of the largest, if not the largest, manhunts in recent history for an escaped inmate from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice,” Robert Hurst, a public information officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said days after the escape, adding that Mr. Lopez was a “very dangerous person.”

Mr. Lopez escaped while he was being driven from a prison in Gatesville, Texas, to a medical appointment in the city of Huntsville, the authorities said. He managed to break free of his handcuffs and to saw his way into the driver’s compartment, where he began fighting the driver.

After the driver stopped the bus and the two men exited, Mr. Lopez stabbed the driver in the left hand and chest, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Another officer on the bus shot out its two back tires. Then Mr. Lopez returned to the bus and managed to drive it for a mile before losing control. When the bus came to a stop, Mr. Lopez ran into a wooded area, where he disappeared.

In addition to his murder conviction, Mr. Lopez had eight other convictions since 1994, including attempted capital murder, kidnapping and three separate counts of aggravated assault.