Six of Seven Prison Farm Escapees Are Recaptured

One maximum-security prisoner remained at large Thursday night after he and six others broke out of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s prison farm in Castaic.

All the others who fled Wednesday from the facility, where they were awaiting trial on a variety of charges ranging from burglary and robbery to multiple murder, were recaptured in less than 24 hours.

The single holdout was identified by Deputy Mike Ford as Terrence Liddell, 41, who had been awaiting trial on a burglary charge.

Of the six others, the last to be taken into custody Thursday was the one authorities considered the most dangerous: Arvey B. Carroll, 26, a paroled slayer, who, Ford said, was awaiting trial on two new murder charges.

Caught at Bus Station

Carroll, wearing civilian clothes and armed with an eight-inch knife, surrendered without a struggle when confronted by sheriff’s deputies at the Greyhound Bus Terminal in downtown Los Angeles.

Ford said Carroll is a Los Angeles native who was convicted in 1976 of kicking to death a 51-year-old woman teacher in an empty classroom at the California Youth Authority school in Paso Robles, where he was serving a term for aggravated assault.

Paroled last year, Ford said, Carroll was subsequently charged with two more murders.

The mass escape Wednesday night from the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, a 22,000-acre county prison farm that houses 4,000 prisoners in a dormitory located off Interstate 5 not far from the Six Flags Magic Mountain amusement park, touched off a major search in the vicinity.

About 100 deputies and several police dogs were involved in a widespread manhunt throughout the day in the largely undeveloped hills of the Santa Clarita Valley. Another 90 sheriff’s cadets were called in to search the interior of the sprawling honor farm.

Helicopter Grounded

A helicopter aided in the search Wednesday night and early Thursday but was later grounded by bad weather.

Ford said the investigation has been turned over to the sheriff’s fugitive detail, which began checking possible escape routes including airports, railroad terminals--and the bus station where Carroll was apprehended.

Circumstances surrounding the escape were under investigation, but another spokesman for the Sheriff’s Department said it was too early to determine who was at fault and whether any disciplinary action will be taken against jail personnel.

The minimum-security section of the jail, where inmates work off their sentences by growing food and performing laundry services, has been plagued by numerous escapes over the last several years. However, Sheriff’s Lt. Gary Beach said Wednesday’s escape was only the second that he could recall from the maximum-security section in his 20-year career.

Although there are only a handful of homes in the immediate vicinity of the jail, some residents expressed concern for their safety.

‘Have the Doors Locked’

Carol Steere, who lives a few hundred yards from where two of the prisoners were captured Thursday, said: “I have the doors locked and my rifle loaded.”

Such fears were reinforced when one of the escapees, identified as Raymond Beavers, 18, who had been awaiting trial on an armed robbery charge, was taken into custody in the Bouquet Canyon area.

A home near where Beavers was arrested had been burglarized. Residents reported that a ski jacket, a pair of jeans, a portable stereo radio, a black overnight bag--and a hunting knife--were missing and that a jail uniform had been left in their place.

Sgt. James Sears of the sheriff’s fugitive detail said it was the clothes and the overnight bag that led to Carroll’s arrest.

The fugitive was carrying the bag and wearing the clothes, Sears said, when he and his partner, Detective Dieter Gerlach, spotted him in the bus station. At the time, he said, they assumed that Carroll was unarmed--but the knife was later found in the bag.

Sprained Both Ankles

Sears said Carroll told them he had sprained both ankles while running across open fields outside the honor farm, but refused to say where he had obtained the money to buy the bus ticket to San Francisco found in his possession.

The bus was scheduled to leave at 7 p.m., Sears said, but Carroll was arrested at 6:45.

The seven escapees apparently used a length of pipe to force open a steel screen on a window of their second-story room in the maximum-security section of the jail, Ford said. They tied their bed sheets and blankets together to lower themselves to the ground, then scaled a 20-foot-high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

The escape occurred sometime between 3 p.m. Wednesday, when the seven were present for an inmate head count, and 10:30 p.m., when their disappearance was discovered during a routine bed check, authorities said.

At the time of their escape, they were clad in dark blue jump suits with “Los Angeles County Jail” inscribed on the backs, investigators said.

Four Found Near Jail

Four were recaptured about 4 a.m. Thursday in two separate commercial districts within a few miles of the jail, Ford said.

Those apprehended at Magic Mountain Parkway and The Old Road were identified by Ford as Thomas Bishop, 19, who was being held on burglary charges, and David O’Brien, 34, a robbery suspect.

Ford said two others--Michael Marth, 26, charged with burglary, and Mark Lowry, 23, charged with parole violation--were captured at Valencia Boulevard and Creekside Road.