MINNESOTA LAKE — A suspect in a Mankato carjacking and linked with a nine-hour standoff in Austin this January was arrested after evading law enforcement for more than three weeks.

Sheriff’s deputies with Faribault and Blue Earth counties arrested Thomas Kendricks III on Friday in Minnesota Lake (about 24 miles south of Mankato), said Mower County Sheriff Terese Amazi, whose deputies assisted in the Jan. 14 standoff in Austin. Kendricks, 23, likely fled the scene of the standoff before law enforcement surrounded the house that day in the 1100 block of Eighth Street Northwest Austin.

Austin police learned about the carjacking in Mankato early morning on Jan. 14, later found the car parked at that home and surrounded the home. After the all-day standoff in Austin, police arrested a 15-year-old girl and 17-year-old boy; however, Kendricks was not at the home.

Deputies who arrested Kendricks this Friday were not immediately available for comment; however, Amazi said Kendricks was placed in the Blue Earth County jail, where he will be formally charged by county attorneys.

The 17-year-old arrested during the Jan. 14 standoff, Jamie Cornelius Hawthorne, was previously charged along with Kendricks in the Mankato carjacking, in which they allegedly threatened a woman at gunpoint outside an apartment on the 200 block of Briargate Road. Furthermore, the two are suspects in a Quick Mart robbery in Mankato that happened the day before the carjacking.

Amazi could not offer further details about Kendrick’s arrest.