Last Jail Bus Escapee Held in Santa Ana

Sixteen hours of investigative work paid off Saturday when sheriff’s deputies arrested a suspected killer, the last of three prisoners who had escaped from a jail bus the day before, outside a home deputies had apparently staked out.

Son Hong Nguyen, 23, of Santa Ana, who is charged with killing a man and setting his body on fire, was arrested at about 7:45 a.m. as he rode a bicycle in Santa Ana. He was wearing a white T-shirt, jail-issue pants and a red baseball cap, residents said.

Nguyen was one of the inmates who kicked out the back window of a jail bus just before 4 p.m. Friday when the vehicle stopped at a traffic light in Westminster as it was returning to Orange County Jail from Municipal Court in Westminster.

Two of the prisoners were caught within the next four hours in a massive manhunt near the breakout.

A resident on St. Anne Place, where Nguyen was caught, said that deputies swarmed a house in her 1800 block about 11 p.m.

“They were doing surveillance for more than an hour,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “I saw sheriff’s deputies go back and forth at the house, and they were using flashlights and it looked like they were searching for something.”

“It later dawned on me that maybe this was connected to the three jail escapees. It was really frightening because I went to bed wondering what was going on. I was so worried I couldn’t sleep.”

The woman said she awoke just after 7:30 a.m. Saturday and walked into her living room to adjust the thermostat when she looked out the front window to see a man pedaling down her street toward the driveway of the home that had been raided.

“It seemed like he knew where he was going,” the neighbor said.

Seconds later, she said, she saw unmarked sheriffs’ cars approach the man, who abandoned his bike and ran toward some shrubbery in back of the house. About eight patrol cars arrived and Nguyen was taken away.

It was unclear Saturday whether he had any connection with the residents of that home, which is surrounded by a metal security fence. One occupant declined to comment.

Sheriff’s Lt. Richard Paddock said that investigators were able to capture Nguyen by “following several leads in the area.” He declined to elaborate.

Nguyen was charged in court Friday with the March murder of Michael Vu, a 22-year-old Garden Grove man. Vu was shot and his body was set on fire. Police said at the time that the killing was gang-related and that Nguyen and a second suspect, who also has been charged with murder, believed the victim had swindled them.

Nguyen and the two other prisoners--Robert A. Pandolfi, 25, hometown unknown, and Lester Clarence Tuthill, 36, of Cypress--remain in Orange County jail.

The escape remains under investigation, sheriff’s officials said.