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Escapee Sentenced to 32 Years for Jailbreak, Burglaries, Rapes

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Times Staff Writer

A habitual criminal who gained public attention when he escaped from a Castaic jail in March, 1985, and eluded capture for a month, has been sentenced to more than 30 years in state prison for the jailbreak and a series of burglaries and sexual assaults.

Some of the crimes occurred before Terrence Lee Liddell’s incarceration at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho in Castaic and others during the time he was a fugitive.

Liddell, 44, of Reseda pleaded guilty in April to nine felony charges, including escape, rape and burglary. Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Judith M. Ashmann sentenced him Thursday to 32 years and four months in prison.

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In a probation officer’s report, Liddell explained his decision to plead guilty rather than go to trial.

“I have to take some responsibility,” he was quoted as saying. “I guess I’m guilty enough. I’m guilty of most” of the crimes.

Liddell has spent much of his life in jail, beginning at age 14, when he was sent to a California Youth Authority facility on a burglary conviction, court records show. He has been incarcerated at least nine times since for a total of 27 years.

The most recent case arose from a series of break-ins and sexual assaults in the West San Fernando Valley in October, 1984, only five months after his parole from prison on a previous theft. Liddell was arrested in November, 1984, and was sent to the Castaic jail to await trial.

He led six other inmates in a March, 1986, breakout from the maximum-security section of the jail. The group fled by climbing out a dormitory window and scaling two barbed-wire fences, police said.

Although the other escapees were captured within 24 hours, Liddell remained at large for a month before officers spotted him riding a stolen bicycle to a Reseda convenience store.

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During his period as a fugitive, he committed several more residential burglaries and sex offenses, court records show.

“The bottom line is that this defendant is either unfit, unwilling or unable to live in a civilized manner,” the probation officer said in his report. “He seems to have no concern whatsoever for his victims and simply behaves on his deviant impulses.”

Liddell will be eligible for parole in about 14 years.

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