A crowded cell with a fatal flaw: how three inmates broke out of US jail

It was almost 16 hours before jail officials noticed their absence

The inmates cut the steel screen between bunk beds as part of their escape plan

In a crowded cell of some 65 inmates with an eye on freedom, the metal screen between two bunk beds was always likely to attract interest. After amassing the necessary tools, the three men who are now among America’s most wanted, began their now infamous jailbreak by cutting through the screen in the wall between bunks at the Orange County Men’s Jail, 40 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

Crawling through the hole, they followed the plumbing tunnels to the roof, a journey that involved cutting through a set of half-inch-thick steel bars. There, they made a gap in the rooftop razor wire, tied together a makeshift rope, using their linens and rappelled down to the street, four storeys below. All the time the men wore their orange jail jumpsuits.

Authorities were still scouring Southern California today for the three men who escaped from the maximum-security jail. The three inmates, all described as “very dangerous”, made their escape early on Friday morning, shortly after the regular 5am headcount. The US Marshals Service and FBI have offered a combined reward of $50,000 (£35,000) for information leading to their recapture.

One of the men, 20-year-old Jonathan Tieu, was being held for murder. He escaped along with 37-year-old Hossein Nayeri, who is accused of kidnapping and torture, and Bac Doung, 43, who was arrested a month ago for attempted murder and several related charges. At the time of the escape, the trio shared a dormitory at the jail with 65 other inmates.

It was almost 16 hours before jail officials noticed their absence during the regular 8pm headcount, which had been delayed by an hour due to a fight involving other inmates, which authorities believe may have been staged to keep guards from noticing the men were missing. The jail was built in 1968 and has 900 inmates; this is its first successful escape attempt in almost three decades.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department released grainy video footage of what officials said was one of the escapees preparing to abseil off the roof.

As well as working to catch the men, police said they had launched a separate investigation into how the escape was planned and whether any other inmates or jail workers were involved. The elaborate jailbreak may have taken weeks or months to devise. “This is a very sophisticated-looking operation,” Sheriff Sandra Hutchens told reporters. “People in jail have time to sit around and think about ways to defeat our systems.”

Mr Tieu had been held since October 2013 over a killing thought to have been gang-related. Mr Nayeri is accused, along with three other men, of kidnapping the owner of a California marijuana dispensary in 2012. The man was driven into the desert, where his kidnappers reportedly burned him with a blowtorch and sliced off his penis. After the attack, Mr Nayeri fled to his native Iran, but was arrested in Prague in November 2014 as he changed flights on his way to Spain.

Authorities said that the escapees are likely to be armed, and that there was so far no reason to believe they had left Southern California. According to the Orange County Register, Mr Duong and Mr Tieu are both Vietnamese, and Mr Duong does not speak English.

Mr Tieu’s mother and sister appeared on local news station ABC7 on Sunday to plead with him to give himself up. Insisting he had not contacted them since his escape, they said they did not believe he would hurt anyone, despite his murder charge. “I feel like he was manipulated or tricked into doing this,” said his sister, Tiffany Tieu, telling her brother: “Turn yourself in. Don’t let this drag on.”