Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Truck Hijacked by 2 Pitchess Escapees Found
A truck hijacked by two inmates who escaped from the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho was found a few blocks from the East Los Angeles home of one of the prisoners Friday, but the two escapees remained at large, Los Angeles police said.
Jesus Guerrero, 23, and Mario Garate, 19, escaped Tuesday night and later stole a truck from two college students parked outside a hotel near the Magic Mountain theme park.
Los Angeles police found the abandoned truck Friday morning in the 1700 block of Workman Street in Lincoln Heights, just a few blocks away from Garate’s home, Officer Susan Padron of the Los Angeles Police Department said. She said it had been stripped of its battery, tires and other parts.
“I have a strong belief that he’s within the area,” Padron said of Garate.
Garate, who was serving time for spousal abuse, and Guerrero, who was jailed on a narcotics charge, escaped from a processing center in a minimum security area where about 200 other inmates were gathered, authorities said.
The pair managed to pass a razor wire fence between the processing center and the outside wall of the jail.
Authorities said both men had been scheduled to be transferred to a higher-security facility because they had caused trouble among other inmates.
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