VENUS — Homestead Police apprehended two of the three teens who escaped from the Last Chance Ranch by overpowering and beating two guards.

Edward Russo Woodruff, 14, and Jesus A. Duran, 15, were arrested Tuesday afternoon after a citizen, who spotted two people fitting the descriptions of two of the escapees, notified Homestead Police, Glades County Sheriff’s Detective Terrence Deese said Wednesday.

Woodruff and Duran were being held Wednesday in a juvenile detention facility in Dade County.

Remaining at large is Andrew James Helderman, 16, 5-feet 11-inches tall, 175 pounds with green eyes and black hair. He was sentenced to the ranch program for two counts of battery.

The teens fled the rural lock-up facility Dec. 31 in a guard’s 1989 Honda Civic, Deese said. Woodruff and Duran said Helderman wanted to go out on his own so they dropped him off, but being unfamiliar with the area, they could not provide authorities with even an approximate location.

The three teens were initially charged with felony battery, false imprisonment, criminal mischief, burglary, grand theft of a motor vehicle and escape.

Robbery has been added to the list of charges.

After they beat guard Winston Leroy Harvey, the teens took the guard’s wallet, which contained about $400, Deese said. 
Harvey was critically injured from being struck repeatedly with metal baseball bats.

He had two or three large cuts on the head, a concussion, a few broken ribs and a broken arm, Deese said.

Guard Robert Morris was punched and kicked and stuffed into a mattress cover and locked inside a bathroom closet.

Anyone with information regarding Helderman is asked to contact Detective Deese at the Glades County Sheriff’s Office at 863-946-1600 or your local law enforcement agency.