MIAMI -- Reynaldo Rapalo was all smiles when police apprehended him Monday night, but detectives say while the serial rape suspect was on the lam after escaping from a Miami-Dade County jail last week, he was scouting his next victims.

According to detectives, Rapalo told them he was scoping two women who were attending a holiday party Christmas night.

"When the party finished, he saw these two individuals again on the outer portion and he thought to himself -- he actually contemplated -- committing a sexual act on these two people," Miami-Dade Police Department Sgt. Robert Perez said.

But Rapalo, 34, reportedly told detectives he didn't go through with it because he didn't want to get caught, since police were actively searching for him.

Detectives say he also avoided the Shenandoah neighborhood in Little Havana, where he knew he would be recognized. Rapalo is believed to be the Shenandoah rapist.

Law enforcement officials used wiretapping to trace Rapalo's calls that detectives say he made from the Dadeland Mall and near Miami International Airport to friends for help.

Rapalo escaped from the Turner-Guilford Knight Correctional Center Dec. 20 by using tied-up bed sheets to lower himself from the roof of the facility. Authorities said he climbed through a ceiling vent to get to the roof.

Police say before he escaped, Rapalo told another inmate he was going to kill a prosecutor in his case and return to his native Honduras.

A spokesman for the state attorney's office said officers were assigned to guard two prosecutors and State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle while Rapalo was at large.

"I think I found out about it this morning in the Palm Beach Post," Rapalo's attorney, Herbert Smith, said.

Smith questions the alleged murder plot and the credibility of the inmate who police say shared the information with them.

"The reality is Mr. Rapalo left the jail for the purpose of trying to go back to Honduras," Smith said. "I mean, the last thing I think he wanted to do was encounter anybody here, let alone try to do something to some prosecutor here."

Rapalo was scheduled to appear in court Jan. 5 for DNA evidence that allegedly ties him to seven rapes and four attempted assaults in Shenandoah dating back to 2002. The victims range in age from 11 to 79.

He gained notoriety as the subject of a documentary feature called "Code 33" that chronicles his alleged crime spree and his subsequent arrest.

Police recaptured Rapalo at a Winn-Dixie shopping center on Bird Road near Southwest 67th Avenue in a "tactical arrest" that was planned and executed as a result of the investigation.

Rapalo had shaved his mustache, combed his hair forward, and was wearing jeans and a pink sweater at the time of his capture, not what he was wearing when he escaped.

The arresting officers who responded to the tip said Rapalo told them he was a homeless man from Nicaragua and ran when he was being questioned.

Rapalo has been denied bail on an escape charge.