Madonna stalker caught near Norwalk mental hospital he escaped from

An escaped mental patient once convicted of stalking and threatening to slash the throat of pop star Madonna was arrested near the facility Friday, authorities said.

Robert Dewey Hoskins, 54, was taken into custody about 9 a.m., and was being returned to the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, the facility from which he walked away last week, Los Angeles police Officer Cleon Joseph said.

Hoskins, who once scaled a wall around Madonna's Hollywood Hills estate and threatened to cut the singer's throat, was convicted in 1996 of stalking her and making terrorist threats.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and, after his release, was transferred to Atascadero State Hospital, where he was determined to be a "mentally disturbed offender," according to police.

Last July, about a year after he was released from Atascadero, he was arrested again and sent to the Metropolitan State Hospital.

During Hoskins' trial in 1996, Madonna testified against him, telling jurors she had recurring nightmares after seeing the homeless drifter from Oregon near her home in April 1995. She said her bodyguard told her that the man claimed "he was there to take me away ... that I was supposed to be his wife, that if he couldn't have me, he was going to slice my throat from ear to ear."

Hoskins returned to the property a month later -- when Madonna was in Florida -- and scaled the perimeter wall, jumped into her pool and was eventually shot twice by a security guard. Hoskins is highly psychotic when not taking his medication and has "very violent tendencies," according to police.