Jail Escapee Described as Charming but Wily

Ambling past armed guards and security cameras, the heavyset man caught on tape looked so ordinary that he blended right in with the civilian employees of Los Angeles County Jail.

But underneath the festive flowered shirt and amiable demeanor that helped him walk out of jail, Kevin Jerome Pullum is a calculating, desperate and dangerous man, authorities say.

As the manhunt for Pullum continued into its second week, a complex picture of the 31-year-old emerged from court records and interviews.

Pullum can appear friendly, polite and courteous, even charming when he wants to be, those who know him said. But he holds his cards close to the vest, and is wily enough to adopt other identities successfully, authorities said.

When provoked, as he was two years ago during an argument in Van Nuys--Pullum had no qualms about shooting another man six times, in broad daylight.

On Monday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department described Pullum as “extremely dangerous.”

“He’s a third-striker. He doesn’t want to go to prison. I’m not sure what he would do to stay out of prison, but I would assume the worst,” sheriff’s spokesman Rich Pena said of the fugitive, who could be sentenced to life in prison.

Pullum, who has also used the aliases Michael Hill and Eric Dwayne Shelby, grew up in Pacoima. He is the youngest of three brothers and three sisters. Two of his brothers are in prison, according to his half-sister, Jerryle Bradley. Pullum’s teen-age years were spent mostly without his father.

“Kevin and I have been very close. He’s our baby brother,” Bradley said. “I would say problems began when he was young. We didn’t have a whole lot.”

In 1988, when Pullum was 18, he was convicted of second-degree robbery and sentenced to four years in state prison. In 1991, he was convicted of possessing a firearm and given 16 months in prison, records show.

Pullum was convicted of his second strike in 1994 for another second-degree robbery. In that case, he drove the getaway car after another man took a woman’s purse and $11 at gunpoint, court documents show.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Pullum’s third strike came July 6, when a Van Nuys jury convicted him of an attempted murder that he committed in 1999 as a parolee. He escaped hours later.

His escape 11 days ago was not the first time he has eluded authorities. After the Van Nuys shooting, Pullum was a fugitive for 10 months until he was arrested in Pasadena last year, after police there found him sleeping in a stolen car.

He gave a phony name but police identified him through his fingerprints and discovered the warrant for his arrest.

“He has a lot of cases behind him,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Jane Winston.

She called Pullum a “career criminal.”

Pullum can appear well-mannered and polite.

“He was very friendly,” said Larry Baggett, a court-appointed ballistics expert in Pullum’s attempted murder case.

“He talks spirituality, the way he was speaking about his faith and that his faith would bring him through.”

Don Fandry, a court-appointed handwriting expert who testified for Pullum during his most recent trial, said: “He was very polite and always a gentleman when I talked to him.”

But others characterized Pullum as street smart, methodical, tenacious and crafty.

Pullum is a “very good manipulator,” said Bradley, his half-sister. “He knows how to use his charms to get what he wants.”

The convict has repeatedly acted as his own lawyer--which strongly suggests that he doesn’t trust others to handle his defense, those close to his case say. In court, he was deferential and respectful toward the judge.

“He was pleasant to everybody,” said LAPD Det. Dan O’Hanian. “He smiled at the jury, stuff like that.”

Before his latest trial, Pullum filed motions neatly handwritten in pencil on yellow legal paper. He came up with many excuses to delay his trial--which might have been part of his strategy all along to buy time for plotting his escape, those close to his case believe.

“Who could say why a person goes wrong?” Bradley said.

“Some of the best homes have some of the worst problems. . . . I don’t know, things just happen.”