Captured: Rocklin police find fugitive Eric Abril hiding in creekbed. Murder suspect now in custody

Rocklin police captured escaped murder suspect Eric James Abril at 12:30 p.m. Monday, ending a 30-hour manhunt that began early Sunday morning when he fled from Roseville’s Sutter Medical Center.

“If you run you will be shot,” an officer could be heard shouting over police radio. “You understand?”

“His hands are up,” the officer continued. “He’s listening to commands. He’s walking toward us. It’s confirmed it’s him. Tattoos on his arms, matches the description, orange pants.”

Abril, 35, was taken into custody near Antelope Creek behind 5855 Zion Court, according to radio traffic, following a night-long search for him by dozens of police officers who combed through rough, rocky terrain using dogs, drones and aircraft.

Word of his capture came from scanner traffic, and Placer County sheriff’s officials tweeted the news shortly after the arrest.

“UPDATE: Fugitive Eric Abril is in custody,” the tweet read.

“It’s been a long couple of days for our staff and our community,” Placer Sheriff Wayne Woo said at an afternoon press briefing.

Woo said Abril was still wearing his waist chain but his hands were not cuffed and he was wearing only his jail-issued boxer shorts.

He added that Abril was returned to Roseville Sutter Medical Center to be medically cleared for jail, but that this time he is under guard by six SWAT team members instead of a single guard, as was the case Sunday night.

Abril’s lawyer, Matthew Bockmon, learned of his client’s capture from The Sacramento Bee and expressed relief.

“I’m glad he’s safe,” Bockmon said. “And I hope nobody else is hurt.”

Abril ‘didn’t try and run’

Zion Court resident Bill Sanchez said he called 911 after he spotted an orange jail jumpsuit by the creek behind his house, then led officers through his garage toward Abril.

“I said, we got the guy, he’s got to be right here,” Sanchez said.

“He didn’t alert, didn’t try and run,” Sanchez said. “Standing there in his underwear.”

Residents who had watched as helicopters flew overhead and armored cars drove down their streets gathered as law enforcement took Abril — shirtless and appearing to have knees heavily scratched by the underbrush he had been hiding in — into custody.

Cheryl Katzen, 58, walked over to view the commotion in Zion Court after she heard on a police scanner that law enforcement recaptured him.

Katzen lives on Bryce Way less than a mile away from the location Abril was found and said she watched police officers and a SWAT team roar past her house prior to Abril’s capture.

Aeron Heath, 52, was visiting her 75-year-old mother on Zion Court when law enforcement caught Abril behind Sanchez’s house.

“They got him and pulled him up on the other side of the creek,” Heath said. “We heard them getting him and yelling. It was like yelling pain, like if you were hurting.”

Heath, 52, who drove down from Loomis, said there is access to the creek from her mother’s house, and she was terrified for the last two days that Abril would come to her residence.

“The thought of some psychotic killer running around, that’s terrifying,” Heath said. “My mom has lived here for 40 years, and there’s sheds and vehicles parked where there’s lots of hiding spots.

“Last night, I was here in the evening searching the property and making sure everything was safe, and I came early this morning to re-check. “The guns were so big.

“We’ve never seen anything like that here before.”

The arrest came after a massive effort by more than 200 law enforcement officers trying to find a man accused of executing a 72-year-old hostage at Mahany Park during an April 6 standoff with police.

Abril also is charged with shooting the slain man’s wife in the arm and wounding a California Highway Patrol officer at the scene.

Sheriff investigating how Abril escaped hospital

Abril escaped from the hospital — about 3 miles from where he was arrested Monday afternoon — shortly after 3 a.m. Sunday.

He had been in the hospital since Thursday for treatment of seizures and was supposed to be under 24-hour guard with a deputy present at all times.

Initially after his April arrest, Abril was classified as requiring two deputies if taken to a hospital but that later was reduced to one deputy, and Woo vowed to investigate how that happened and what led to the escape.

“This should have never happened,” Woo said.

Abril escaped by running down a flight of stairs as a deputy ran after him but lost him as he made it through the hospital doors. Placer sheriff’s officials said they were investigating how the escape happened, and said suggestions that the deputy had fallen asleep were not accurate.

“Our preliminary investigation reveals the deputy was not asleep during the incident,” sheriff’s officials said in a statement Monday before Abril was found.

An internal investigation has begun to determine what occurred leading up to Abril’s escape, and this investigation confirmed, at some point, that Abril “was able to defeat his restraints,” sheriff’s officials said.

Woo was asked about the possibility that the guard had fallen asleep and told The Sacramento Bee in an interview following Sunday’s media briefing that officials had no information to corroborate that.

“There is no evidence of that,” Woo said. “There is an ongoing investigation and we’re really focusing on getting (Abril) back into custody.”

“I’m concerned with the fact that this occurred, obviously,” Woo added. “And we’ll be doing a full investigation when the time is right.”

In response to a Bee query about the deputy, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Angela Musallam said the deputy was assigned to the corrections division and remains on the job: “He is still assigned to the corrections division — an internal investigation has been initiated.”

Abril’s capture came after law enforcement officers from throughout the Sacramento region converged on the Roseville and Rocklin areas to help, and Rocklin police Lt. Scott Horillo called the capture “a team effort” Monday.

In addition to Placer sheriff’s deputies, other involved agencies included police from Roseville, Lincoln, Folsom, Grass Valley, Truckee, Woodland, Davis and West Sacramento.

Sheriff’s deputies from El Dorado, Nevada, Yolo, Sacramento and Amador counties also joined the effort, as did the California Highway Patrol, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the FBI and other agencies.

Law enforcement searched Placer County creeks for Abril

Many of the agencies were involved in a night-long search that began late Sunday and wrapped up before dawn Monday in a heavily wooded area on the other side of Interstate 80 along Secret Ravine between Roseville and Rocklin.

At 12:50 a.m. Monday, authorities zeroed in on a spot at the end of China Garden Road in Rocklin, about a mile northeast of the hospital, after a law enforcement aircraft spotted movement where police had been searching Sunday afternoon.

For a time, it appeared as though the massive response — including heat-sensing equipment, drones and dogs — had pinpointed Abril’s location.

Authorities called in teams of searchers and dogs and methodically began to move through the area, which was heavy with brush and near Secret Ravine, according to scanner traffic.

“The subject looked to be buried under the bushes under the trees from where they saw him go to ground first,” one deputy said over the radio as searchers combed the underbrush and studied broken branches, footprints and other possible clues for hours.

At one point, searchers said they found some ice and food in the area, and authorities began directing teams toward a spot along the creek where they had last seen movement using heat-sensing equipment.

After several minutes, they concluded the heat signature they had detected likely was too small to be a person, but teams continued to search the surrounding trails. Residents told officers there were deer in the area, and they or other animals might have caused the heat signatures searchers were detecting.

“He was moving east when he disappeared,” one officer told colleagues over the radio. “I think he went to ground where everyone was looking.

“The only way to move was east through the brush.”

Another searcher said he was close enough to hear movement.

“There was some heavy movement near a tree and it just stopped,” he said. “Then we heard some crackling noises.”

An El Dorado County sheriff’s unit was using a drone to help searchers, who were hampered by the thick brush in the area.

“It’s just hard to access,” one officer said over the radio. “It’s super thick.”

At times, officers could be heard whispering updates over the radio as they sought to keep their target from overhearing them.

Despite their efforts, searchers apparently came up empty and some began leaving the area at 3 a.m., two hours after they first spotted movement there.

The area searchers had pinpointed was about 3 miles northeast of where Abril had been seen on a security camera at 3:39 a.m. Sunday walking on Rainier Court in Rocklin.

The Bee’s Molly Jarone and Paul Kitagaki Jr. contributed to this story.