Twice in a row when I've had that 'you notice item, and minions scurry off with it' event, I have had the minion captured, the comatose minion, but no item. It says this:

Your lizard minion trap crashes down, but all you manage to do is capture a single lizard minion, you hurt him! How dare you?! You angrily stuff the comatose lizard minion into your inventory and lie in wait.

Is this just a run of bad luck, or has Subeta stopped the free item thing?

I've gotten an item fairly recently I believe, it's probably a string of bad luck. I've never had the comatose minion RE though.

Do you have the spray and trap? its not 100% chance without both.