Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Car Thief Escapes From Jail During the Night : Castaic: Ralph Rogers apparently crawled through hole in fence at a minimum-security section of facility.

A convicted car thief escaped from a minimum-security facility at the county jail early Friday morning, apparently by crawling through a hole in a chain link fence, authorities said.

Ralph Rogers, 36, was last seen in his bunk during the midnight count at the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho, said Deputy Patrick Hauser of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Deputies discovered he was missing during a similar count at 3 a.m.

“A hole was discovered in the fence behind his dorm and that’s believed to be his avenue of escape,” Hauser added.

The minimum-security facility houses inmates convicted of relatively minor crimes in military-style barracks, said Lt. Ed Dvorak, watch commander of the facility. He said deputies patrol the grounds, but are not stationed inside the inmates’ unlocked dorms.

A fence around the facility provides additional security, but Rogers somehow created a hole in the fence.

“We’re not exactly sure if he was able to cut it or break loose a weld,” he said. Rogers was arrested April 6 and booked on numerous misdemeanor warrants and a felony warrant for auto theft, Hauser said. He was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison on the vehicle theft charge, but was scheduled for release Nov. 25 because of sentence reductions, such as time off for good behavior.

Deputies searched the 2,800- acre, five-jail Pitchess facility and notified local law enforcement officials, but were unable to find Rogers, Hauser said.

Rogers is described as a white male, 6 feet tall, 190 pounds, with brown hair, brown eyes and a thick dark mustache. He was last seen wearing a light green county jail jumpsuit.

There have been 10 escapes from Pitchess this year, nine from the Ranch facility Rogers fled and one from the medium-security South facility, said Errol Van Horne, operations lieutenant of Pitchess.

“What we’re talking about generally are walkaways,” he said. “They perform work outside the fences . . . and they walk away from their work assignment.”

No inmates have escaped from the jail’s three high-security facilities in recent years, Van Horne added.

Two of the last four escapees from the Ranch facility have been caught, Dvorak said. He said he does not have exact figures on other escaped inmates, but police catch up with most of them.

“Unless they leave the country we usually recapture them,” he said.