The hunt for a convicted murderer who escaped from a Maine prison late Thursday was still underway as of Saturday afternoon, according to the Maine State Police.

A dispatcher at the state police barracks in Bangor said authorities had yet to track down Arnold Nash, 65, formerly of Hancock County, who was last seen around 8:20 p.m. Thursday at the minimum-security unit at the Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston. The Maine Department of Corrections has yet to explain how Nash escaped or why he was being housed in a minimum-security prison.

Charleston is a small town of mostly farms located 25 miles northwest of Bangor in Penobscot County.

Arnold Nash

Nash was convicted in 1992 of beating to death a 58-year-old man inside a cabin in North Sullivan in Hancock County in 1991. Nash had intended to rob his victim, Wilfred Gibeault, of his veterans benefits.

Nash already had a lengthy criminal history before the murder conviction, mostly for burglaries and thefts. His earliest convictions date to 1973, when he was 19. While serving time for larceny, he escaped from the Maine Correctional Center in Windham. It wasn’t clear how he escaped or how long it took for him to be found that time.

Eight years later, after he had returned to prison for felony burglary, Nash escaped again, prompting one of the longest manhunts in state history, the Moody Mountain Manhunt in Searsmont in 1981.

Nash and another man, Milton Wallace of Freeport – who was in prison for raping and murdering an 8-year-old – were working on the farm at the Maine State Prison in Thomaston when they fled. They were sought for 22 days before they were captured in Morrill, a Waldo County town about 30 miles north of the prison. They had been trying to get to Canada.

Anyone with information about Nash’s whereabouts is urged to contact state police at 973-3700.