Prison Inmate’s Escape in Garbage Truck Backfires

A 25-year-old inmate was back in custody Friday after escaping from a state prison in Lancaster by stowing away inside a garbage truck--only to wind up compacted into a bale of trash and dumped in a landfill, authorities said.

The injured prisoner, Steven Charles Brigida, called for help Thursday morning as a landfill tractor closed in on the trash mound in which he had been discarded. The startled driver saw the inmate floundering in the garbage heap, slammed on his brakes and summoned his supervisors.

Brigida, who was sent to prison for shooting a California Highway Patrol officer in 1987, was turned over to prison guards and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

He was in satisfactory condition Friday at Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center, where he was treated for several broken ribs, a spokesman for the California State Prison at Lancaster said.

Brigida was serving a sentence of life plus eight years for attempted murder, auto theft and burglary, spokesman Kenn I. Hicks said. The district attorney’s office will be asked to file charges stemming from the escape, he said.

Brigida is lucky to have survived in a truck that compresses garbage into a bale four or five times smaller than the original load, said Mike Muller, general manager of Waste Management of Lancaster, which operates the dump.

“The load comes out (shaped) like a loaf of bread,” Muller said. “He was fortunate he was in the middle of the load.”

Brigida apparently had climbed inside a prison garbage bin that was hoisted above a truck and dumped into the vehicle. Prison guards always escort trash trucks in and out of the facility, but apparently did not see Brigida drop into the vehicle, officials said.

After landfill workers discovered the injured inmate, the prison began an emergency inmate count and lock-down and determined that an escape had occurred, Hicks said.

The prison houses about 4,000 prisoners. Hicks said the staff is investigating to determine how Brigida was able to hide in one of the garbage bins, which are stored in a restricted area.

Thursday’s incident was the fourth escape since the prison opened in February, 1993. In July, two minimum-security prisoners walked away from their barracks but were quickly recaptured. In October, a murderer escaped by scaling a block wall and two chain-link fences without being seen by guards. He was recaptured about five hours later outside a market, several miles from the prison.