A man who escaped from a sex offender treatment program in St. Peter was found in Missouri Sunday and taken into custody.
The St. Peter Police Department announced the news days after Steven Loren Edwards took off from the St. Peter Regional Treatment Center Campus. Edwards, 53, was last seen at the facility Friday night. After learning he was missing Saturday evening, officers began searching the area for him.
During the search, Edwards was spotted Saturday in the city of Albert Lea. He acquired a 2004 silver Dodge Stratus, according to a Facebook post from the St. Peter Police Department.
Court records show Edwards entered the state‘s sex offender treatment program in 2008, while in prison for crimes including first- and second-degree criminal sexual assault and kidnapping.
In 2001, he invited a 15-year-old girl into his car before pulling down her dress and touching her breasts, records show. Two months later, he lured another teenage girl into his vehicle, then forced the girl to perform oral sex on him at knifepoint.
He pled guilty to charges stemming from both incidents.
Dakota County filed a petition to civilly commit Edwards as a sexually dangerous person in January 2011. A judge agreed, finding he was likely to engage in “future harmful sexual conduct.”
Edwards appealed that decision, though a higher court affirmed the judge‘s order.
