County Jail Breakout Under Study : Escapees Took Advantage of Disturbance

Two inmates who escaped from the Orange County Jail on Sunday apparently took advantage of the unexpected absence of one of the two deputies assigned to guard them on the rooftop recreation area.

Assistant Sheriff Jerry R. Krans said the second deputy left his partner on the way to the roof to help with a minor emergency somewhere else in the jail.

Police were still conducting an intense search Monday night for the two inmates, convicted killer Ivan Von Staich, 29, and Robert J. Clark, 23, who was awaiting trial on murder charges.

Separate Recreation Hour

The two inmates had been taken to the roof about 6:30 a.m. for a one-hour recreation period. They were housed in administrative segregation, so their recreation time was scheduled separately from other inmates. Administrative segregation is for inmates who either have caused trouble at the jail or who have a history of not getting along with deputies or other inmates.

Staich and Clark reportedly told the deputy with them that they had to go to the restroom. As the deputy moved to open the door for them, they overpowered him, handcuffed him with his own cuffs, then pried open a wire screen along the south wall of the recreation area with a metal bar that had been stored in a nearby maintenance locker.

They then took the power cord from a floor buffer, also found in the locker, secured it to a support on the roof and dropped it over the side of the jail through a screen on the north side of the recreation area.

Then they climbed through the opening they had made on the south side, dropped three feet to a narrow roof extension that surrounds the recreation area and walked around the building on that extension until they reached the north side and the electrical cord.

The cord reached the first-floor roof. Jail officials theorize that the men descended about 80 feet on the cord and then simply hung over the side of the first-floor roof and dropped to the ground.

Assistant Sheriff Krans, who is in charge of corrections for Sheriff Brad Gates, said there is usually a minimum of two, and sometime more, deputies on the roof when any inmates are there for recreation periods. But one of the two deputies scheduled to go with Staich and Clark had to change his plans.

Disturbance Not Related

“He got hung up on some other activity,” Krans said. “There was a ‘man down’ call (a term used for disturbances in the jail) that precluded him from going up to the roof Sunday.”

Krans said the disturbance was not related to the jail escape, and was not set up by someone trying to aid Staich and Clark. He did not elaborate on what caused the man-down call.

Krans said it might be several weeks before any recommendations are made to Gates on whether to make any changes in jail security because of the escape.

“We don’t know if we need to change our procedure because we don’t know if any procedures were violated,” Krans said. “It could be we had a good system and someone just didn’t do what he was supposed to. Or it could be there were no violations, and we need a better procedure. I just can’t say right now.”

Krans was emphatic that Sheriff’s Department officials have no reason to believe at this point that any deputies were guilty of any wrongdoing that would result in their being disciplined.

Police Agencies Alerted

Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Dick Olson said the sheriff’s office has 10 extra units in the field searching for the two escapees, in addition to the 33 cars on regular patrol. A command post set up for the search was still in operation Monday night. Also, police agencies throughout the Southland have been alerted to be on the watch for Staich and Clark, Olson said.

The two were first spotted about 20 minutes after the escape by a Santa Ana man who saw two men in orange jail-issue jump suits running up Flower Street near the jail. About the same time, the deputy who had been overpowered managed to sound an alarm.

Police began looking for a 1972 blue Toyota stolen from the federal building parking lot near the jail. Olson said Monday that officials still do not know if the missing car is related to the escape, but that “we can’t ignore the possibility.”

Both men are considered dangerous, and Olson said it is possible that they are armed by now.

Staich, who is from Lake Elsinore and who once escaped from jail in Riverside County, was convicted last month of second-degree murder and attempted murder in a 1983 attack on his former girlfriend and her husband.

Staich kicked in the door at the home of Cynthia and Robert Topper and burst into their bedroom with a claw hammer. Staich hit Topper several times with the claw hammer, then took a gun away from Tooper and shot him with it three times. He then beat Cynthia Topper on the head so severely that she was forced to undergo two operations to save her life.

Telephone Call Recorded

Staich was in federal prison shortly before Topper’s murder for sending threatening letters to another girlfriend. He had called Topper from prison, upset that Topper was seeing his girlfriend, Cynthia (she and Topper later married).

According to transcripts of that conversation, which Topper tape-recorded, Staich told him: “You might as well know that now, from all the years (in prison) I’ve done, I’ve been kind of institutionalized. I don’t care if I’m on the streets or not. I’ll take someone down at the drop of a dime.”

Staich, who was in the Orange County Jail awaiting sentencing when he escaped, could receive up to 37 years to life in prison for the attack on the Toppers, said his attorney, Jack Earley.

Clark, who is from the Palm Springs area, was awaiting trial on murder and robbery charges stemming from the January, 1984, slaying of David Martinez, whose body was found dumped in an unincorporated area near Irvine.

The last escape from Orange County Jail took place in September, 1983, when accused rapist Michael Eric Gonzalez cut a hole in the roof near where Staich and Clark lowered the electrical cord. He was arrested a few weeks later in El Monte.

Sheriff’s deputies had reinforced the screening in that area to make it more difficult for anyone to cut through it.

The roof was closed for recreation Monday while officials made arrangements to repair the screen area. But Krans said he hopes that roof recreation privileges, which are mandatory by state law, can be resumed today.