4 Escape County Jail, Including 1 Accused of Murder

Four inmates being held on felony charges, including one accused of murder, escaped Sunday night from the Orange County Jail by cutting a hole in security fencing around a rooftop recreation area and then lowering themselves with a sheet, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

A fifth inmate broke his leg in an apparent fall from the fourth-floor roof and was found on a lower rooftop of the jail when sheriff’s deputies began searching for the escapees, Lt. Richard Olsen said. The other four inmates are believed to have leaped to the ground from the lower, one-story rooftop.

“We would have to consider all of these guys dangerous,” Olsen said. “We believe they used a sheet to get from the roof to the lower roof.”

Olsen said it was not immediately known how the inmates circumvented security measures to flee the rooftop recreation area.

“There are normally guards on the roof,” he said. “There are normally two deputies up there.”

The escape was noticed when Santa Ana police received a telephone call about 7:50 p.m. from a citizen who “had seen what appeared to be an inmate getting out of a (jail) jumpsuit in Santa Ana near Sixth and Shelton” streets, Olsen said.

Santa Ana police immediately notified the Sheriff’s Department and deputies began to search the vicinity of the jail.

“As soon as we got the call from Santa Ana, they started checking all the (county) jails and that’s when they noticed the hole” in the fence, Olsen said.

It was not immediately known how the escapees cut through the chain-link fencing of the rooftop recreation area. Olsen also said it was not know how long the men had been free before the escape was noticed.

“We have teams of investigators going out to various locations,” Olsen said, but he declined to say exactly where the search was being focused. However, deputies using dogs were going house-to-house in Santa Ana neighborhoods south of the jail late Sunday.

Inmate Ly Hung, 22, of Irvine, whose leg was broken in the fall, was returned to custody at the jail ward of UCI Medical Center, Olsen said. “He had to fall at least three floors,” Olsen said.

Hung had been booked on March 7, 1988, on a no-bail warrant, but Olsen said the charge was not immediately known.

Still at large late Sunday were these four inmates:

- Eleazar Gonzales, 20, described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall, 165 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was arrested Oct. 5, 1988, by Santa Ana police on a warrant charging one felony count of murder. Gonzales’ bail was $260,000 for the murder charge and drug charges.

- Steven Wilson, 26, described as 6 feet, 1 inch tall, 175 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. He was arrested April 2, 1988, by Orange police on a no-bail warrant on felony counts of robbery, kidnaping, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary.

- Richard Lawrence Fluharty, 26, described as 6 feet tall, 180 pounds with blond hair and hazel eyes. Fluharty was arrested Nov. 9, 1988, by the Sheriff’s Department on one felony count of burglary. His bail was $25,000.

- Anthony Michael Gianetti, 35, described as 5 feet 9 inches tall, 155 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He was arrested Aug 1, 1988, by Huntington Beach police on a robbery charge. His bail was $400,000.

Olsen said it was unknown whether all the escapees had shed their jail jumpsuits, which are bright orange or yellow.

“I am not aware of anything being found at this point,” he said.

The last major escape from Orange County Jail occurred Jan. 26, 1986, when convicted murderer Ivan Von Staich, 29, and Robert J. Clark, 23, who was awaiting trial on murder charges, overpowered a guard on the roof and pried open a wire screen along the recreational area. Staich and Clark lowered themselves from the roof using a power cord from a floor buffer stored on the roof.

Clark was caught 5 days later at a Santa Ana motel. But Staich remained free until Feb. 25, 1986, when he was arrested in Springfield, Mass.

Times staff photographer Richard Koehler contributed to this story.