Authorities on Friday recaptured a 15-year-old boy who is charged with killing his mother and managed to escape a Southern California juvenile facility.
A “very good lead” led authorities to a McDonald’s restaurant in Anaheim, where Ike Souzer was taken peacefully into custody on Friday night, Orange County sheriff’s Capt. Mike Peters said.
Ike Souzer escaped the Orange County Juvenile Hall, somehow got onto a roof and then jumped a perimeter fence just after midnight Friday, said Steve Sentman, chief probation officer for the county.
Jail staff spotted Souzer on the roof, then turned on a facility-wide alarm and called the sheriff’s office, he said.
Peters said deputies were “very quick” to respond, but Souzer was able to elude capture.
The sheriff’s office released surveillance footage showing Souzer tending to an apparent wound on his leg shortly after escaping and then walking seemingly casually away from the facility. The 6-foot, 200-pound teen was wearing red pants and a white shirt.
Dozens of law enforcement personnel, including FBI agents and federal marshals, searched for the boy.
Sentman said it was the first escape from the 434-bed facility in at least two decades and that an investigation is underway into how it happened.
Souzer has been in custody since he was 13, when he was arrested on suspicion of fatally stabbing his mother, 48-year-old Barbra Scheuer-Souzer. His escape came in the middle of Souzer’s trial on a murder charge in juvenile court, said Kimberly Edds, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.
Souzer’s public defender, David Hammond, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment late Friday.
A Gofundme page for Scheuer-Souzer says she was so good at helping her son with autism that she went back to school to help others with the condition and was about to graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles.
“Through her unconditional love and commitment, she helped her son go from non-verbal to verbal status,” according to the page. “Her whole goal was to help her son and the autistic community by giving back and serving the needs of others.”
Scheuer-Souzer had three other grown children and three grandchildren.
