Killer of Girl Flees Jail--Parents Arrested

Brian Keith Smith, a Fontana truck driver convicted of kidnaping and murder in the death of a 10-year-old girl who was buried alive in an ice chest, escaped from the San Bernardino County Jail during a visit by his mother and stepfather, sheriff’s deputies said Friday.

Smith’s parents, Marlene Fridley, 40, and Jerry Fridley, 48, were arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting the escape when they arrived at their Fontana home about 1 a.m. Friday. They were booked into the same jail from which their son had escaped and held on $5,000 bail.

Smith, 25, who apparently unscrewed a glass partition in the visitors’ room of the jail and fled with the Fridleys about 10:30 p.m. Thursday, was not with them when they reached home.

It was the second time Smith has escaped custody. During his trial, he was captured on the courthouse lawn within minutes of his escape.

No Explanation

Sheriff’s officers were unable to explain why Smith was unguarded during the visit, which was outside normal hours because he was under protective custody away from other inmates.

The escape triggered an intense search in the Fontana area by two dozen sheriff’s deputies.

Smith was convicted by a San Bernardino County Superior Court jury on June 30 of first-degree murder involving torture and kidnaping in the death of Melissa Wakefield, whom he abducted from her bed in a trailer outside her Fontana home in the early hours of July 5, 1985. He was also found guilty of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child.

Nearly a week after her abduction, her body was found stuffed inside an ice chest in a shallow grave near the high-desert community of Phelan.

Sexually Molested

The San Bernardino County coroner said she died of suffocation and heat exhaustion after being sexually molested. A forensic pathologist testified that she might have been alive underground for two or three days.

Smith is scheduled for sentencing Thursday and would be eligible for the death penalty, although the prosecution has sought life without possibility of parole.

“We are the dumb guys in this thing,” Sheriff’s Department spokesman Jim Bryant conceded Friday. “I can’t believe we’d let people talk to people (in the visitors’ room) without watching them in there.”

Wanda Moore, a family friend who accompanied the Fridleys on the jail visit, was not arrested.

As deputies combed Fontana Friday, Deputy Harry Hatch described Smith as “extremely dangerous.”

Bryant said it was likely Smith was still in the region because “he has no haunts other than in the Fontana area where his friends are.”

Capt. Gene Rogers, sheriff’s homicide commander, said jail deputies found a note that appeared to have been passed to Smith by the parents that “led us to believe they were of assistance in the escape.” He would not disclose its contents.

Uniform Found

According to Bryant, Smith managed to remove a 2-by-3-foot glass partition through which inmates talk to visitors. His green jail uniform was found on the inmates’ side of the glass. Hatch said it was not known whether the Fridleys brought him other clothes or whether he fled out the door in his underwear.

Rogers said it was possible that a work crew installing a new telephone system in the visiting room inadvertently left behind a screwdriver, enabling the prisoner to remove the glass. The screws, however, were described as security screws that would normally require a special tool for removal.

Smith was arrested six days after the decomposing body of Melissa Wakefield was found buried under 1 1/2 feet of dirt on a lot Smith owned less than a mile from California 138 south of Phelan. Homicide investigators said Smith broke down and confessed shortly afterward.

Put to Bed

They said he had walked the girl home from a neighborhood July Fourth party where she and other children had been given beer; that he helped her stepsister put Melissa to bed in the trailer outside her home and then had returned to the trailer several hours later to take her away.

When he was arrested, Bryant said, Smith was watched around the clock as a potential suicide because he had made statements suggesting that he was considering it.

Smith pleaded not guilty at his trial and his attorney, S. Donald Ames, contended that Smith had made provisions for air, food and water for Melissa, but that she died because of his poor judgment.

In finding that two special circumstances existed in connection with the murder, jurors left open the possibility of a death sentence. But the prosecution asked instead for a sentence of life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

Sentencing Date

The original sentencing date was July 25, but that was postponed, partly because of a pending escape charge growing out of Smith’s disappearance from a holding room during his trial on June 11. That was the incident in which he was arrested on the courthouse lawn.

Bill Martin, 52, the owner of a small shopping center near the Fridley home where Smith lived, described the fugitive as “a loner.”

Martin recalled, “He didn’t know anybody, really. And he liked to hang around with the younger kids. He seemed to feel more secure with them.”

Martin added, “He was very strange. I used to always see him walking the streets alone in the evenings.”

Louis Sahagun reported from Fontana and Jack Jones from Los Angeles.