A convicted mother-killer described as a “violent and dangerous threat to public safety” left a California isolation facility Wednesday, one week after fleeing for the third time in five years. Authorities announced that he was arrested in Mexico.
Last Wednesday, Ike Souther, 20, was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican authorities in Rosarito, Mexico, more than 190 miles south of Santa Ana, California. According to the update From the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.
Officials say Souther, a felon and serial fugitive artist, was arrested thanks to a tip from the National Police Department’s undercover unit that Souther had crossed into Mexico near the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing. was re-arrested.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has been an outspoken critic of California judges who have long been too lenient with violent criminals, most recently this month when he was released from prison after serving his sentence. He was sent to the Project Kinship halfway house in . Troll Anna.
During Souther’s latest escape last week, prosecutors warned the public that he was an “extremely dangerous and violent individual” who stabbed his mother to death when he was 13 years old.
Prosecutors say his rap sheet includes assaulting and shanking three correctional officers inside the prison.
In 2021, over the objections of prosecutors, Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Paulson downgraded Souther’s felony charge in the security guard attack to a misdemeanor and sentenced him to 160 days in prison.
Last October, Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Cassidy sentenced Souther to one year in prison and two years of supervised release in the shank manufacturing case, even though prosecutors had asked him to spend three years in prison. I put it down.
After receiving credit for his work, Souther was released in January, having served just three months in prison.
But days after his release, the 20-year-old was arrested again, this time on charges of graffitiing a highway underpass and giving a false name to police, according to prosecutors.
He pleaded guilty to one count of felony criminal damage and was sentenced by Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin to 90 days in county jail and two years’ probation, over prosecutors’ objections based on his prior convictions.
After his sentencing, Souther checked into Project Kinship House but continued to wander without informing his probation officer, violating the terms of his release, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors say Project Kinship is the same facility Souther fled to in April 2022 after removing his GPS bracelet within hours of arriving.
Souther was rearrested several days later at a homeless camp in Anaheim. Prosecutor Spitzer minced no words in expressing his dissatisfaction with the judicial system at the time.
“My prosecutors have spent years and years trying to do everything they can to keep this heinous criminal behind bars, but the judges who were elected to protect public safety… They have rarely done that and instead given him prison sentences, “break after break after break after break,” Spitzer said, frustrated.
“This man does not deserve a break. He has turned every opportunity to freshen up into a new opportunity to break the law and defy law enforcement,” the prosecutor continued. “He didn’t just walk away and forget to check with his probation officer. As soon as he was taken into custody, he planned to flee to a foreign country to escape the consequences of his own actions. started to build up.”
Souther was found guilty in 2017 of murdering his mother, Barbara Shier-Souther, with a knife when he was 13 years old.
In 2019, Souther snuck out of a closed room at the Orange County Juvenile Detention Center in the middle of the night and climbed over a fence, but was not free for long as he was arrested hours later in Anaheim.
