Story highlights Eric Hartwell is a convicted sex offender who was at a group home

He appears to have cut off his ankle monitor and fled

He was caught in Virginia

Fugitive Colorado sex offender Eric Hartwell, who apparently cut off his ankle monitor and left a group home, has been apprehended in Norfolk, Virginia, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

A fugitive warrant was requested minutes after Hartwell, 51, walked away from Independence House in Denver a week ago.

Hartwell was convicted of raping a child in 1991 and of attempted indecent liberties in 1996, according to the Colorado sex offender registry.

He was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to serve a lifetime of supervised parole by a federal judge in Texas in March 2010 after he was found guilty of failing to register as a sex offender, according to a U.S. Justice Department news release.

Hartwell was placed in a halfway house in Washington state in March 2009 for failure to register as a sex offender, but after just a week there he cut off his leg monitor and fled to Texas, according to the Justice Department.