been chopped to death in a Papua New Guinea village.
Steven Tari, a convicted rapist, had been on the run since escaping from a prison in the Pacific nation during a mass break-out in March.
Police chief Sylvester Kalaut said that Tari and one of his followers were killed at a village about 12 miles outside Madang on Thursday as they were attacking a young woman.
"He is now dead and this could be the fate of the others who are also on the run from authorities and I am warning and strongly urging those escapees to surrender themselves to authorities," Mr Kalaut told the country's Post-Courier newspaper.
Tari, a failed Lutheran pastor, was found guilty in 2010 of raping girls who belonged to his Christian-based sect and sentenced to up to 10 years.
At the time, he had thousands of village followers, including a core of armed warriors to protect him.
He preached that young girls were to be "married" to him as it was God's prophecy.
Police said the woman Tari was in the process of attacking was "a flower girl tricked into joining the cult", adding that angry villagers had surrounded him and his companion and killed them.
His death follows that of a young high school girl about a week ago - a murder alleged to have been carried out by Tari.
Papua New Guinea, located north of Australia in the south Pacific, is one of the world's least explored countries.
Black magic and cannibalism are sometimes reported.
Last year, police arrested dozens of people linked to an alleged cannibal cult accused of killing at least seven people, eating their brains raw and making soup from their body parts.
Sky News
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