Jail Inmate Escapes in Stolen Sheriff’s Truck

A teen-age inmate serving time for joy riding escaped from a county jail in Castaic over the weekend by stealing a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department truck, authorities said Sunday.

Using bolt cutters taken from a jail nursery, 19-year-old Kenneth L. Satterfield sliced through 10 padlocks on the north gate of the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho and drove away between 11 p.m. and midnight Saturday in a black-and-white pickup truck marked with a Sheriff’s Department logo, Deputy Irma Becerra said.

Jail officials discovered that Satterfield, a Wilmington resident, was missing during a 1 a.m. inmate check Sunday, Becerra said.

The truck was found abandoned about 2:30 p.m. in the Los Angeles Harbor area by Los Angeles police officers in the Harbor Division, which also covers the Wilmington area.

Satterfield apparently took the bolt cutters while assigned to work in the jail nursery, Becerra said. He broke into a desk to steal the keys to the truck, she added.

Satterfield was serving a 180-day jail sentence and was to be released from the jail’s minimum-security facility July 8, Becerra said. He was arrested in March on suspicion of stealing a car, but was sentenced a month later for the lesser offense of joy riding.

Becerra described Satterfield as Caucasian, about 5 feet, 10 inches tall and weighing about 150 pounds. He has brown hair and hazel eyes and was wearing a green jumpsuit with “L.A. County Jail” stenciled in black on the back.