The two inmates who broke out of the Santa Clara County Main Jail on Thanksgiving eve by cutting jail window bars and rappelling down with bedsheets now face additional charges after both were captured hiding in attics within 22 hours of each other.
"They've left no stone unturned and have had many, many sleepless nights," Sheriff Laurie Smith said late Wednesday of all the agencies, including US Marshals and FBI agents, who helped bring the fugitives back into custody.
Both captured fugitives — Rogelio Chavez, 33, of San Jose and Laron Desean Campbell, 26, of Palo Alto — are now expected to be arraigned on new charges on Friday after the District Attorney can review the latest allegations. Neither suspect responded immediately for jailhouse interview requests and it was unclear if they were being represented by attorneys.
The maximum penalty for a jail break is three years in state prison consecutive to the sentences they were already serving, plus any additional crimes they committed while they were free, according to San Jose legal analyst Steven Clark. If they had used force, Clark said, the maximum would be six years.
The manhunt for the pair lasted exactly a week. After they both were behind bars — in the same jail that they broke out of — the Santa Clara County Sheriff gleefully tweeted photos with the hashtag "#captured."
After several failed attempts to find him, Chavez was arrested late Wednesday after hiding in an attic of a known associate, Karla Fernandez, on Coy Road about 8:30 p.m., Smith said. He was found in the possession of crack cocaine and marijuana and was high when detectives finally found him, Smith said. A gun was also found inside the home, she said.
Deputies also arrested Fernandez on charges of resisting and obstructing an investigation, being a felon in possession of a firearm and an accessory to Chavez's escape, Smith said. Another woman, Emily Vaca, faces a court hearing on Thursday, after she was also arrested in connection with knowing information about Chavez's whereabouts stemming from a failed search at the Gilroy Days Inn in Sunday. And Campbell's sister, Marcaysha Alexander, 24, of Antioch was also arrested on harboring a fugitive allegations.
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The night before, Campbell was taken into custody on Tuesday about 10 p.m. when he fell through the ceiling from an attic hiding spot at his sister's Antioch apartment.
Deputy US Marshal Joseph Palmer told NBC Bay Area in an interview on Thursday that he and his crew called to Campbell through a PA system to come out, which he did on his own. Palmer said Campbell was was covered in pink insulation from the attic, where he had indeed fallen from. Palmer said when Campbell first came out, the federal agents didn't know what had happened until they went inside to see the hole in the ceiling.
Tips led authorities to various spots throughout the week as to where the fugitives might be holed up, and Smith said at the news conference that $20,000 reward will be divided among the many who provided valuable information.
Both Campbell and Chavez made national news on the night before Thanksgiving about 11 p.m., when they made a daring escape from the jail. They cut through the jail window bars in the oldest part of the jail, using bedsheets to rappel down their second-story jail cell window. The cutting tools have yet to be found, Smith said, and how they got them has not yet been determined.
Before the escape, Campbell had been held since February 2015 on various charges including robbery, false imprisonment, criminal threats and firearms violations.
And Chavez had been in jail since Aug. 17 on various charges including burglary, extortion, false imprisonment, resisting arrest, and firearms violations.
