Escaped Convict Slain by Police in Mt. Washington

A “one-man crime wave” who escaped from a Pasadena courthouse Monday was shot to death by police early today during a manhunt in which dozens of police officers with dogs and helicopters tracked the man through the Mt. Washington residential area northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

Daniel Vega, 23, the escaped convict, was shot when he pulled a gun on three officers while he was hiding in a crawl space under a house in the 300 block of Glenalbyn Place, according to Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Lt. Dan Cooke.

Vega, who was serving three life sentences for kidnaping, escaped Monday after overpowering a guard at gunpoint in a Pasadena courthouse holding cell, unlocking two doors and hobbling in chains to a parking lot, where he fled in a pickup truck with two accomplices.

The manhunt in Mt. Washington began about 7 a.m. today when a resident of the 500 block of Vista Gloriosa Drive called a security guard service after seeing the man sleeping in a pickup truck in front of her house, police said.

When a guard arrived and rapped on the truck window, Vega pointed a gun at the guard’s head and then stole his gun and escaped, investigators said.

After combing the area for two hours, police, aided by a canine patrol officer, found the man about a quarter of a mile away at the house on Glenalbyn Place. When the man drew a weapon, officers fired several shots, killing him, Cooke said.

Vega had been in custody since August, 1985, and was at the Pasadena Courthouse for a pretrial hearing in connection with charges that he threatened to kill the father of rock star David Lee Roth.

He was convicted in 1985 of three counts of robbery, kidnaping and stealing cars at gunpoint during test drives at auto dealerships. Authorities did not know how he managed to get a .25-caliber pistol into the courthouse’s lockup Monday, police said.