Orange County Fugitive Killer Seized in Massachusetts

Convicted killer Ivan Von Staich, who escaped Jan. 26 from the Orange County Jail, has been captured in Massachusetts, authorities said Tuesday.

Springfield, Mass., police officers spotted Staich shortly after midnight Saturday loitering near a senior citizens apartment complex, Orange County Sheriff’s Capt. Doug Storm said. Staich reportedly refused to give his name to two officers, then bolted, shoving one of them as he fled. He was captured a few blocks away.

Computer Checkout

Storm said Springfield police were unaware that Staich, 29, of Lake Elsinore, was a fugitive until a Justice Department computer check of his fingerprints was completed early Tuesday.

Staich had remained in jail in lieu of $100 bail on suspicion of assaulting an officer because he did not have the $10 required to post bond, Storm said.

“We do know he made some calls to have someone bring him some money so he could post bail and he was unsuccessful in doing that,” said Gary King, assistant superintendent of the Hampton House of Correction. “It’s a fortunate situation because if he had access to a relatively small amount of money like $10, he would have been released . . . . It was a lucky break.”

Orange County sheriff’s deputies went immediately to Massachusetts. Staich has refused to waive extradition proceedings and authorities expect it will take 60 days to bring him back to Orange County.

Escaped From Jail

The convicted murderer escaped from the jail’s roof-top recreation area with accused killer Robert Joseph Clark, 23, of Palm Springs, by overpowering a lone unarmed guard.

Clark was captured five days later at a motel three miles from the jail.

At the time of his escape, Staich was awaiting sentencing for second-degree murder and attempted murder in a 1983 attack on his former girlfriend and her husband.

According to trial testimony, Staich shot Robert Topper three times after beating him with a claw hammer and then beat the woman, Cynthia Topper, on the head so severely that she was forced to undergo two cranial surgeries to save her life.

Authorities had been worried that Staich would attempt to find his former girlfriend.

“The family’s relieved and everybody’s happier now,” Topper’s father, Loren Bess, said Tuesday. “My daughter has not been with me since he escaped. She’ll be coming back home pretty soon. She was quite happy, very happy, extremely happy.”

“I am relieved,” Charlotte Staich, the fugitive’s mother, said in Lake Elsinore. “I didn’t know if he was dead or alive. I think anybody who has children would have that worry.”