Officials Describe Jail Escape That Angered Neighbors

A murder suspect who escaped from custody for 24 hours used a hacksaw blade smuggled in a book and a rope of dirty laundry to break out of the Pitchess jail in Castaic, sheriff’s deputies said Monday. The weekend escape, one of several recently from Pitchess, left neighbors fearful and angry.

“There is obviously something wrong over there,” said Christine Moten, who has lived in the nearby Hillcrest Park housing development for three years. “It seems like criminals are beginning to get out at regular intervals.”

A May 1995 breakout by 14 of the jail’s inmates prompted sheriff’s deputies and neighbors to establish a warning system under which members of a citizens advisory group sound air raid sirens and pass along telephone warnings to notify 1,400 neighbors when there is an escape.

Since then, there have been two escapes--in September 1995 and May 1996--involving four inmates. In another incident April 6, a rape suspect, thought to have escaped, was found hiding in the jail’s basement.

The warning system went into effect in the most recent escape, when Robert Carrasco, 40, was discovered to be missing about 7:30 p.m. Saturday from the North County Correctional Facility, the maximum security compound in the Pitchess Detention Center. More than 100 sheriff’s deputies and SWAT team members searched for Carrasco through the night, said Barry King, chief of custody for the Sheriff’s Department. Helicopters, mounted units and dogs were also used, he said.

On Sunday, sheriff’s deputies fanned out to the West Los Angeles area, where Carrasco lived and had relatives, and found him about 10 p.m. in the 1200 block of Braddock Drive, said Deputy Kimberly Unland. Carrasco was a passenger in a car driven by his sister, Frances Carrasco, 38, of West Los Angeles, when detectives arrested them without incident, Unland said.

Frances Carrasco was charged with being an accessory to an escape and held on $50,000 bail, Unland said.

King acknowledged that inmate escapes are a cause of concern for neighbors but said Pitchess does not have a higher escape rate than other facilities.

Escapes “are minimal,” he said. “It doesn’t occur that often.”

However, “when you’re dealing with human beings, there’s always a potential for failure,” King said, promising to instruct guards to “keep the level of awareness of escapes up at all times. It is easy to get into a routine, which we want to avoid.”

Monday, investigators pieced together the painstakingly planned escape from the 7-year-old facility, which sheriff’s officials believed was secure. Until Saturday, they had never found evidence of even an attempted escape, King said.

Investigators believe Carrasco and three other inmates--whose identities are being withheld--sawed through a steel lattice near an outdoor toilet in a fenced-in yard, King said. At least two hacksaw blades were smuggled to the inmates in book bindings, which allowed them to work on the 3/8-inch-thick corrugated steel lattice bars over an unknown period of time, he said.

The saw cuts were not discovered because there is a metal barrier shielding the toilet, King said. Investigators believe that, to scale the 14-foot fence surrounding the yard, the inmates fashioned a rope from dirty laundry left there in a bin, King said.

On Saturday night, four inmates threw the rope over the fence and tried to use more dirty clothing as padding to protect themselves from two rows of barbed wire at the top, he said.

Despite that, investigators believe two of the inmates cut their hands so severely on the barbed wire that they turned back, and another abandoned the attempt when he saw how badly the others were cut, King said. Although Carrasco made it out, he--like the other two--needed sutures on his badly cut hands.

“It’s obvious that it was well planned because they knew where to go, had three separate pick-up points, three separate people and cars to get them,” King said. “There were changes of clothing in the cars. [The inmates] had visits earlier that day with the alleged pick-up people.”

Robert Carrasco, who was arrested in February last year on suspicion of murder and was being held without bail, will also be charged with escape, Unland said.

Sheriff’s investigators have not determined whether charges will be filed against the other three inmates who attempted to escape.

Times staff writer Tina Daunt contributed to this story.