The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office says they have captured three of the four boy who escaped from a youth detention facility in Byron on Monday..
Sheriff's spokesman Jimmy Lee said Tuesday afternoon the three were found at an Antioch Walmart around noon.
One juvenile remains on the loose. He is a 15-year-old.
The boys were being held at the Orin Allen Youth Rehabilitation Facility, also known as the Byron Boys Ranch, located at 4491 Bixler Road in Byron, Chief Deputy Probation Officer Paula Hernandez said.
The facility, which is designed to rehabilitate low-level delinquent youths, is not locked or fenced, Hernandez said. It is in a remote part of unincorporated eastern Contra Costa County surrounded by fields.
Boys at the facility range in age from 13 to 18 years old.
The four boys who walked away on Monday were in the younger group and were all 14 and 15 years old -- an age when boys sometimes "tend not to think things through all the way," Hernandez said.
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On Monday night, the sheriff's office sent out a precautionary emergency notification telling residents in Byron and Discovery Bay that the four teens had escaped and advising them to stay inside while deputies searched for them, Lee said.
The notification said that one of the boys was believed to be dangerous, but Lee said today he doesn't believe residents were in danger.
Walk-aways at the boys' ranch have become less frequent in recent months, Hernandez said. The last boy to walk away left about six months ago, and before that, staff members celebrated an entire year without a single walk-away, she said.
Bay City News contributed to this report.
The sheriff's office is asking anyone with information about the remaining boys' whereabouts to call dispatch at (925) 646-2441.
