A seriously creepy stalker who broke into Madonna’s home and threatened to slit her throat had escaped from a Los Angeles mental hospital – but has since been found (after almost a week on the loose!)

Robert Dewey Hoskins apparently was just able to walk out of the Metropolitan State Hospital in the Los Angeles suburb of Norwalk last Friday. He’d been there about a year.

54 year old Hoskins is described as ‘highly psychotic’ and can be extremely violent. LA police said he should not be approached by members of the public, which raises the obvious question of why it was so easy for him to leave the mental hospital, for crying out loud. They asked people who spot him to call police right away. Um, YEAH.

Then, later in the day, good news from the LAPD. According to the LATimes: “Robert Dewey Hoskins, 54, was arrested not far from the Norwalk facility that he escaped from last Friday. Police had been searching for Hoskins, whom the Los Angeles Police Department described as “a very psychotic man when not taking his medication” and as having “very violent tendencies.”

Hoskins was convicted of stalking Madonna and threatening her. He received a ten year prison sentence in 1996. Madonna testified at the time that her personal security shot at him after he jumped the fence of her Hollywood Hills home. He apparently invaded her property several times in 1995 and gave her staff a note threatening to slit her throat if she didn’t marry him. Geez.

Hoskins has also made similar threats to Halle Berry, who has reportedly expressed an interest in moving overseas to avoid stalkers.

Police say they had searched areas where Hoskins may have tried to go, including the city of Long Beach, just South of Los Angeles.