Escape Looked So Easy He Joined In, Inmate Told Family

The parents of escaped murder suspect Eleazar Gonzalez said Friday that their son told them he did not plan to break out of the Orange County Jail but joined the attempt at the last minute when he saw other inmates making their way through a hole cut in the fence.

“He escaped because it was easy,” said Sabino Gonzalez, Eleazar’s father, from his home in Santa Ana. “And he said that he was sorry he did it.”

Gonzalez, 20, one of four inmates who successfully escaped from the jail’s rooftop recreation area Sunday, surrendered to authorities Thanksgiving evening after surprising his girlfriend, Sarah Vargas, with a knock on the door of her Santa Ana home.

Fifth Was Captured

A fifth inmate was recaptured just outside the jail after breaking his leg in the escape attempt, but three other escapees remained at large Friday. Authorities were alerted to the escape Sunday when a caller to Santa Ana police reported seeing some men shedding their jail uniforms not far from the facility.

Vargas, 20, who works as a nursing assistant at UCI Medical Center, said that she and her 3-year-old daughter, Priscilla, her mother and her sister-in-law had just returned from Thanksgiving dinner near Lake Elsinore when Gonzalez knocked at their door about 7 p.m.

Although she and other family members had been under almost constant surveillance since Sunday, she said, nobody seemed to be watching them when Gonzalez appeared.

“I opened the door, and he just stood there,” Vargas said. “Then he asked how I was, and then Priscilla came up, and he held her and he told her that he loved her.”

Vargas said it was Gonzalez’s idea to turn himself in, although he feared prison authorities would beat him.

“That’s why we all went with him,” Vargas said. “We wanted to make sure that nothing happened to him.”

Vargas, Gonzalez and their daughter drove to the house of Gonzalez’s parents, also apparently no longer under police surveillance, and the entire family drove to the Santa Ana police station where he surrendered without incident.

Sustained Several Injuries

Alicia Gonzalez, Eleazar’s mother, said that she admonished police not to hurt her son and noted that they were unable to cuff his hands behind his back because he had injured his arm in the escape. She said her son also hurt his leg and suffered rope burns on his fingers and scrapes on his back and chin.

“These five days, for me, have been one long nightmare,” Alicia Gonzalez said. “I don’t know if he was afraid, but I was. The police told me that if they found him, they would shoot him. So after that, even if I knew where he was, do you think I would tell them? So they can go and shoot him?”

Vargas said that shortly after Gonzalez escaped on Sunday, he called her from what she assumed to be a pay phone and asked that she meet him near the Civic Center in Santa Ana.

“I didn’t know what was happening,” she said. “He said, ‘Can you come to me?’ And I said, ‘Did you get out?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ And I asked him what happened and he said, ‘Never mind, if you love me, you’ll come.’ ”

Vargas said she went to the meeting place but found no trace of her boyfriend of six years. After stopping at a friend’s house nearby, she said, she called home to her mother.

‘Grabbed the Phone’

“But the police grabbed the phone” from her mother, Vargas said. “I guess they thought he was with me. They told me I could be an accessory and that they were going to take my daughter away. Then they came there, where I was at my friend’s house, with their guns and rifles, and started asking me questions.”

Vargas and Gonzalez’s parents said that before Thursday evening, they had no personal contact with the escapee, who was awaiting trial for what police say is the gang-related shooting death of Juan Cedilla Picon, 20, in a Santa Ana alley on July 25.

Authorities had warned that Gonzalez, like the other three inmates still at large, should be considered very dangerous, a characterization that Alicia Gonzalez said was untrue.

“Frankly, right now, I am up to here with the police,” she said.

“All they did was bother us. They kept saying that my son was dangerous. He is not dangerous. He is sick in the head, that’s what it is. From the drugs, and more than that, ever since that guy (Cedilla), the one he had the fight with, hit him in the head, he changed.”

Escaped on an Impulse

Gonzalez said that her son was playing handball at the time of the escape and that when he saw the other men making their way through the hole they had cut in the fence, he joined them on impulse.

“He thought, ‘Well, I might as well go, too,’ ” she said.

Sabino Gonzalez, who reportedly spoke with his son on the telephone about 2 a.m. Friday, said the family did not know exactly where he had spent his time since Sunday, although they believed he had lived on the streets. He added that his son told him he spent one night sleeping in a garbage container.