911 call says escaped inmate was scared, ready to surrender

An accomplice picked up the three men after their escape and Nayeri, the ringleader, held the taxi driver at gunpoint later that night in Rosemead, a Los Angeles suburb, Hallock told reporters.

Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens called the escape of three men from the Central Men’s Jail an “embarrassment” and acknowledged that the maximum-security lockup appears not to have followed proper policies to keep track of inmates. She will be released from jail on her own recognizance while the investigation continues.

Their life on the lam was a mix of mundane and menacing, according to an account Hallock shared with reporters Monday. Duong turned himself in Friday and the other two were arrested in San Francisco on Saturday. The tipster also said someone who looked like one of the fugitives was in the area. Nayeri and Tieu were returned to Orange County on Sunday and were booked back into jail in isolation since they are considered an escape risk. The fugitves were free eight days after the early-morning getaway.

Authorities said the inmates sliced through steel bars, crawled through plumbing tunnels and cut razor wire before making their way on to the roof of the Orange County Central Men’s Jail.

For hours, Hallock said, they moved between houses in several cities before calling for a taxi, which took them to a Target store in Rosemead, California.

“We still will stand behind the fact that Ms. Ravaghi admitted to us that she provided maps”, Hallock said. It’s unclear where they got money for their purchases. Investigators found gunshot rounds in the van, but have not recovered the weapon used to kidnap the taxi driver, Hutchens said. Nguyen was linked to Duong, Hallock said. Then, he stole the vehicle, the sheriff’s spokesman alleged. The fugitives get haircuts purportedly to change their appearance.

Over the next three days, the men hid out at the Flamingo Inn Motel in Rosemead, Hallock said. On Jan. 25, Tieu mailed a letter to his mother from the Garden Grove post office.

“It’s important to note that it’s believed the mailing of the letter is believed to be a distraction technique that was used by the escapees before they drove to Northern California”, Hallock said. He said investigators have detected some problems with how counts were conducted in this instance. Hallock said investigators believe this was a diversion to give the false impression they were still in Southern California before leaving for the Bay Area. While there, Nayeri and Duong had an argument over whether to kill the cab driver.

The cab driver wasn’t injured, Hallock said. Where did they stay? Policecaptured Nayeri and Tieu Saturday outside a San Francisco Whole Foods after a witness spotted the stolen white utility van.

Police approached Nayeri, the suspected mastermind of the jail break, and he was captured after a short foot chase.

A man and a woman speak to a dispatcher on the call and tell her that 43-year-old Bac Duong is with them and wants to turn himself in. All were awaiting trial for violent crimes.

Before the jailbreak, Tieu was in jail on murder charges, Nayeri was in jail for allegedly torturing and kidnapping and Duong was facing attempted murder charges. All pleaded not guilty in their cases. Neither he nor Rackaukas would say what Nguyen had smuggled into the jail.

“We’re terribly embarrassed and frustrated by what occurred”. “We feel like we let the public down”.

That cutting required powerful tools that the men would not have had access to without some kind of help, and could not have been done with something made on the inside, officials said.

Nguyen was charged last Tuesday with one count of smuggling weapons into a correctional facility, two counts of sending an article useful for escape into a prison, and one count of aiding a prisoner’s escape.