California jail escapees back in custody thanks to watchful resident

Police recaptured two inmates who escaped from a Southern California jail and had been on the run for over a week. A tip this morning from a woman who saw the inmates’ stolen van in a San Francisco parking lot led police to 37-year-old Hossein Nayeri and 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu. Their fellow escapee, Bac Duong, turned himself in Friday.

“I can say this morning that the entire state can breathe a sigh of relief,” Orange County, Calif., Sheriff Sandra Hutchens said at a press briefing.

The three men had all been jailed and awaiting trial on charges in separate violent crimes. The men escaped in the early morning hours on Jan. 22 after cutting a hole in a metal grate then crawling through plumbing tunnels and onto the roof of a four-story jail building.

They pushed aside barbed wire and rappelled down using a rope made of bed linen.

It took jail staff 16 hours to realize the three men were missing. On Thursday, authorities arrested Nooshafarin Ravaghi, 44, who taught English in the jail and is accused of helping the men plan the escape.

Hutchens said the county will now move on “to where the system failed. … We do not want another escape from an Orange County jail.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.