A convicted murderer who fled to Canada after his walk-away escape from a Casper work-release program is back in Wyoming.

Shannon Parazoo and his stepson, Alonzo Durgin, were returned to the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Rawlins on April 10, prison spokeswoman Melinda Brazzale said Monday.

Parazoo and Durgin walked away from the Casper Re-Entry Center on Feb. 9. Along with Parazoo's wife and two of her children, they traveled to Montana and then Canada, Parazoo told the Star-Tribune during a phone interview last month from a British Columbian jail.

"It's the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life," he said at the time. "I've totally ruined my future and (my wife's)."

Parazoo had seven months left on a 20- to 30-year prison sentence when he left the re-entry center.

Canadian police captured the fugitives on Feb. 23 outside of Merritt, British Columbia, about three hours northeast of Vancouver. Parazoo had unsuccessfully tried to purchase a tire at a store in the town of Logan Lake, about 40 miles to the north. The clerk there thought him suspicious and contacted police.

Parazoo, 43, and Durgin, 28, waived extradition and were taken from Maple Ridge, British Columbia, to Bellingham, Wash., said Parazoo's wife Rose. From there, they were taken to Elko, Nev.

Rose Parazoo, who's been living in Rawlins since her return from Canada, said she hadn't heard from her husband in a week. Canadian authorities didn't take her into custody when they arrested her husband.

Parazoo and Durgin, who was convicted of aggravated robbery and aggravated assault in 1997, are now being housed in separate units at the Wyoming penitentiary, Brazzale said.

Both men will be taken to Casper in the next few weeks to face escape charges, said Natrona County Sheriff's Sgt. Mark Sellers. After that, they will likely be brought back to the penitentiary, he added.

State escape charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

In April 1985, Parazoo pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in connection with the death of Ronald Clay Tyler, a Gillette man who'd been beaten and left unconscious near the Natrona County line. Tyler died of hypothermia.

Reach Joshua Wolfson at (307) 266-0582 or at josh.wolfson@casperstartribune.net.