Killer Missing From County Jail for 25 Days

A convicted murderer serving a life sentence has been missing from the Los Angeles County jail for the last 25 days, and sheriff’s officials are still unsure whether he has escaped or has managed to conceal himself somewhere in the massive jail system.

The disappearance of Victor Castrellanos, a 32-year-old Mexican national, was announced Monday after sheriff’s officials were unable to find him at either the downtown Men’s Central Jail or the Hall of Justice Jail. The Folsom Prison inmate had been in county custody since December while his legal appeals were being heard.

“We don’t know where he is. He could be in, or he could be out,” said Assistant Sheriff Richard Foreman, who oversees the department’s eight jails.

Castrellanos’ absence went unnoticed for nearly four weeks and was discovered only after he had missed three court appearances, a sheriff’s spokeswoman said.

Officials said losing a prisoner is not uncommon in an overcrowded system where hundreds of inmates constantly stream between jails and courthouses. Each day as many as 50 inmates manage to hide and avoid court appearances, Foreman said.

“We’ve got 23,000 folks in our jails, and a lot of people like to play games,” he said. “It’s not unusual to have a ‘miss-out.’ ”

Foreman said inmates often switch wristbands or alter jailhouse passes to confuse deputies and perhaps give themselves time to escape.

“If (Castrellanos) is playing that kind of game, he’s good at it,” Foreman said. “If he got out, we’d like to know how he accomplished that.”

Castrellanos, who had been serving a 32-years-to-life sentence at Folsom Prison outside Sacramento, had transferred to the Hall of Justice Jail so he could make local court appearances for his appeal of a 1986 murder conviction.

Castrellanos--a gang member who also used the names of Victor Casrellanos, Victor Rodriguez and Victor Ramirez--had been convicted of murder and attempted murder in a Los Angeles street gang robbery, sheriff’s officials said. They had no further details of the conviction late Monday.

Sheriff’s officials said jail records show that Castrellanos had not been seen since March 22 when he complained to a nurse of a knee injury and was sent to a holding cell at the Inmate Reception Center. The center is located at the downtown Men’s Central Jail about a mile from the Hall of Justice facility and is used to process prisoners as they move through the county’s jail system.

The following day, however, Castrellanos failed to appear for a court hearing and also missed two other court appearances on April 9 and April 11. Although the Sheriff’s Department computer records indicated that Castrellanos was still housed in the medical housing module at the Inmate Reception Center, the inmate could not be found.

His court absences, however, went unnoticed because of the number of inmates transported to and from court each day, Foreman said.

Sheriff’s officials said they are considering Castrellanos an escapee and have sent Teletypes to law enforcement agencies nationwide and in Mexico.

Castrellanos, whose wife still lives in Los Angeles, was described as dangerous. He is 5 feet, 10 inches tall, weighs 170 pounds and has brown hair, brown eyes and tattoos on his chest and back.

Sheriff’s officials said they are trying to reconstruct Castrellanos’ movements through the jail’s computerized records and other tracking systems but, so far, they have been frustrated. The last escape from Central Jail was last July, officials said. But Foreman added that that inmate took a more conventional exit.

“In that case, there were classical signs of an escape--there was a (cell) bar removed” he said. “And that guy was apprehended.”

Sheriff’s investigators are still looking into the 1987 escape of William Londono, a Colombian drug dealer who was mistakenly released from Central Jail. His escape was not discovered for six days. Sheriff Sherman Block has acknowledged that the jail’s security system had been compromised and that Londono probably was helped by an employee or an inmate familiar with the jail’s computer.

Sheriff’s officials have been under a federal court order to ease overcrowding in county jails and have granted early releases to more than 100,000 prisoners since 1988. Released inmates included those who could not afford to post bails of $2,500 or less but who promised to appear in court and inmates convicted of misdemeanors involving relatively minor crimes ranging from petty thefts to some assaults.

Times staff writer Bob Pool contributed to this report