ESCAPED INMATE FROM PITCHESS STILL ON THE RUN MAN PROBABLY HOPPED FENCE WHILE ON LAUNDRY DUTY.

Byline: JUDY O'ROURKE Staff Writer

CASTAIC -- The area-wide search for an inmate who escaped Thursday morning from the Pitchess Detention Center was scaled down in the late afternoon and the man was still on the loose at nightfall.

Inmate Felix Melvin Stiglbauer likely hopped a fence and fled after reporting for a laundry detail, sheriff's officials said. The inmate's ankle bracelet activated the alarm system within four minutes after he breached the facility's perimeter.

More than 40 sheriff's deputies from five cities, two helicopters, and scent dogs descended on the Santa Clarita Valley to aid about 20 local deputies -- some in off-road vehicles -- in the search.

Officials warned nearby residents to lock their doors and windows and check inside their vehicles before entering them.

Other than a discarded jacket, sock and shoe found on the jail grounds, there were no signs of the inmate and the search was downsized.

``We've narrowed it down to a smaller area, scaled back our resources and are searching that area now,'' said sheriff's Cmdr. Don Rodriguez about 4 p.m. ``The major crimes bureau is looking at other leads in case he got out of the area.''

Emergency notification sirens blared at 6:57 a.m., alerting nearby residents of an inmate escape, and the jail went on lockdown moments later.

Stiglbauer, 24, had been sentenced Nov. 2 to three years in state prison for vehicle theft and evading arrest in the Torrance area. He has been in county jail since March, and was due to be transferred to the state system.

The inmate had been transported with 79 others by a deputy from the medium-security north annex to the laundry for his daily work assignment. He was last seen on the premises by a deputy guarding the perimeter about 6:50 a.m., as he walked from one work area to another, Sgt. Darren Harris said. The deputy deemed the inmate's destination odd, and made an inquiry shortly before the alarm was activated, Harris said.

The alarms and warning did not stop Castaic resident Linda Lockhart from setting out on a solo run up Sloan Canyon, headphones intact.

``It made me a little nervous,'' she said. ``But helicopters were close, they'd circle, go past me. One was lower, getting a closer view, kind of like he was watching me.''

Castaic neighbors Claudia Kirk and Patti Kratzer dropped their kids off at a preschool program at the Castaic Regional Sports Complex, where a sign on the front door read ``Locked down due to jail break,'' and a black-and-white was parked nearby.

Earlier Kirk had dropped off her kindergartner at Live Oak Elementary, which was on lockdown all day.

``All the kids went to the (multi-purpose room,) no one was allowed on the playground,'' she said. Parents were allowed to accompany kindergartners to their classrooms.

``We were wishing he was caught,'' said Kratzer, a 13-year area resident, who panicked the first time she heard the alarm years ago but now routinely follows the precautions.

All four schools in the Castaic Union School District were locked down. Today they are closed for the Veterans Day holiday.

The district is looking at improving school safety as part of its overall safety plan, and the topic was on the agenda at Thursday's board meeting, said Superintendent Jim Gibson.

The district's ConnectEd system automatically notified parents of the jailbreak and parents were asked to pick up their children from school.

A witness reported spotting a man wearing a white T-shirt and yellow pants at 8:16 a.m. on a utility road northwest of the laundry, on the edge of the jail property. A bloodhound tracked Stiglbauer's scent from the laundry to the county-owned Jack Bones Equestrian Center outside the secured area and accessible to the public, but there the trail ended.

The inmate's denim jacket was found northeast of the facility and a shoe and sock were found northwest of the laundry on the 2,800-acre property. Rodriguez said the tip led deputies to the sock, but the inmate was nowhere to be found.

Squad cars from Palmdale, Lancaster, East Los Angeles, Lost Hills, Crescenta Valley and Temple City joined local sheriffs and Pitchess units in the search.

The seven emergency notification sirens were tested Nov. 2. A new siren is the closest to a growing neighborhood rapidly approaching the eastern border of the jail grounds, the Tesoro del Valle development, which does not have a siren of its own, despite its proximity to Pitchess.

This was the first escape from Pitchess this year; three of the four who escaped in 2005 have been found. Three men had escaped from the laundry, one from the kitchen.

The escapee from the kitchen was arrested coming back from Mexico with a trunkful of marijuana and sentenced to federal prison, Rodriguez said. Another escaped on his birthday, the same day he was due to be released -- and was sentenced to another year.

Stiglbauer is 5 feet 8 inches tall, weighs 180 pounds, has brown eyes, black hair, a mustache and beard. He has a rap sheet but was never convicted of a violent offense, said sheriff's Sgt. Darren Harris.

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3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) Sheriff's deputies search the wash along Tapia Canyon Road, above, just north of Pitchess Detention Center, for inmate escapee Felix Melvin Stiglbauer, top, who escaped from the jail early Thursday morning.

(3) Sheriff's deputies patrol in cars and on off-road motorcycles in search of escaped inmate Felix Melvin Stiglbauer along Tapia Canyon Road, just north of Pitchess Detention Center, on Thursday morning.

David Crane/Staff Photographer