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Bedford, Iowa authorities said an inmate who escaped a state prison shot and wounded a sheriff's deputy, stole his truck, then broke into a rural farmhouse and held an elderly couple hostage for about four hours before the homeowner retrieved a gun and killed him, according to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.

Rodney Long, 38, climbed a 12-foot chain-link fence to get out of the minimum-security unit at the Clarinda Correctional Facility before dawn on Aug. 16, 2013, investigators said. Long was serving a five-year sentence for a burglary conviction in Appanoose County. A judge had first placed him on probation, but he was sent to Clarinda in March after violating rules at a halfway house in Ottumwa.

Two days later, Taylor County sheriff's deputies were sent to check on a man walking along Iowa Highway 2 near New Market. Investigators said that when Deputy Dan Wyckoff, 33, got out of his truck, Long opened fire, hitting him twice, then drove off in the deputy's pickup. Wyckoff was flown to a hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, and was expected to make a full recovery.

A second deputy chased the stolen truck for about 40 minutes on rural Taylor County roads, with shots exchanged along the way, before the truck rolled over on a gravel curve southeast of New Market and Long ran off into the countryside, authorities said. Investigators from Iowa, Nebraska and Missouri joined the search, which covered about 16 square miles and included multiple passes by the rural property where Long eventually turned up.

Long broke into that home, belonging to Jerome Mauderly, 71, and his wife, Carolyn, 66, around 10:15 p.m. on Aug. 19, according to investigators. He cut the couple's phone lines except for one extension, then took a shotgun that Jerome Mauderly, a retired prison guard, had loaded and left near the bed. Armed with a handgun, Long kept the couple with him for about four hours while he searched the house for supplies, officials said.

Early on Aug. 20, Carolyn Mauderly reached a 911 dispatcher on a cell phone, but the call disconnected after she said only that the man was inside the house. When the dispatcher called back, she reported that her husband had shot him and that he was down on the kitchen floor, investigators said. Jerome Mauderly had retrieved the shotgun while Long was upstairs and fired when he came back down. Long was pronounced dead at the scene; neither of the Mauderlys was hurt.

The Division of Criminal Investigation said Jerome Mauderly would not be charged, ruling the shooting was in self-defense. Spokesman Mitch Mortvedt said the couple believed Long intended to kill them.