‘Lock down the hospital’: Inside the 33-hour manhunt for Roseville murder suspect Eric Abril

The first sign of a problem came early Sunday, when a California Highway Patrol officer saw a man in an orange jumpsuit running down a street in Roseville.

“CHP just broadcast to Roseville that they have a unit outside of Roseville saying there’s a subject in an orange jumpsuit, possibly an escaped inmate from the hospital,” a police dispatcher reported. “We’re trying to make contact with the unit.”

Minutes later, a dispatcher relayed a message from the deputy who was guarding Eric James Abril at Sutter Roseville Medical Center, “advising an inmate did foot bail from him.”

Then a flurry of messages back and forth over police radio traffic show how law enforcement started responding to what would become a 33-hour crisis for Placer Sheriff Wayne Woo and residents in the Roseville and Rocklin areas.

“Notify to lock down the hospital,” a dispatcher said, according to scanner traffic archived on Broadcastify.com. “We need the last known location and direction of travel, please.”

“Can you check on air? See if we’ve got anything available?”

“Looks like he was last seen hitting the greenbelt just west of Labor and Delivery.”

“I know you guys are stretched thin up there, but can somebody call the jail and see what this guy’s ‘want’ is, and any violent history?”

The answer came back right away.

“Jail is advising it’s a 187 suspect from the park incident at Roseville,” a dispatcher said, using the penal code number for a murder charge.

How an inmate like the 35-year-old Abril — a man with a long criminal history who is accused of killing a 72-year-old man at Mahany Park in April, then shooting the man’s wife and a CHP officer — came to be at the hospital with only one deputy is now under investigation by authorities.

And Abril, who already was facing murder and attempted murder charges from the Mahany Park standoff, made his first appearance in court Wednesday since being recaptured.

He now faces an additional felony charge of “escape while felony charges are pending” and of “attempt to escape and escape from law enforcement custody.”

Abril appeared in court handcuffed inside a glass pen with two deputies, one of whom held firmly onto his right elbow the entire time.

He appeared expressionless throughout the session and spoke only to confirm his identity, while Placer County Assistant Public Defender Brandon Bob entered a not guilty plea and agreed to him being held without bail.

“We’re happy to see he’s alive and safe and sound back in custody,” Bob said.

Abril’s next hearing was set for Aug. 29.

Following the hearing, Placer sheriff’s Capt. Nelson Resendes told reporters that the escape is being investigated and that officials are “eager” to put into place any needed changes after the embarrassing lapse allowed Abril to escape.

“We’re humbled by it,” Resendes said. “We’re not happy this occurred.

“We are sorry we can’t take it back.”

He added that Abril is now in custody in an area of the Roseville jail by himself and under 24-hour watch.

The latest criminal complaint against Abril lists special allegations that he has a 2014 serious or violent previous felony conviction from San Luis Obispo, and that he is eligible for “the imposition of the upper term of imprisonment.”

“The crime involved great violence, great bodily harm, threat of great bodily harm, or other acts disclosing a high degree of cruelty, viciousness or callousness,” court documents say. “The manner in which the crime was carried out indicates planning, sophistication or professionalism.

“The defendant has engaged in violent conduct that indicates a serious danger to society.”

The court filing also says that Abril’s “prior performance on probation, mandatory supervision, postrelease community supervision or parole was unsatisfactory.”

Woo, who has been sheriff for only a year after joining the Sheriff’s Office as a deputy in 1994, has vowed a complete investigation of how Abril escaped from the lone deputy and how he ended up classified as an inmate who could be escorted outside the jail by only one guard.

“When Abril first came into custody he was classified as a two-officer move,” Woo said Monday, hours after Abril had been captured in Rocklin along Antelope Creek at about 12:30 p.m. “I can say that sometime during the month of May our classification unit downgraded him to a one-officer move, and that will be part of this entire review of how that occurred, what prompted that decision. ...

“And we’ll make course corrections to ensure that this never happens again. As the sheriff for this entire county, I take full responsibility for this incident, quite frankly. I take the protection of this community seriously and, quite frankly, as the sheriff who’s in charge of the jail and the custody of prisoners this never should have happened. ...

“And we’ll make sure this never happens again, at least as long as I’m sheriff, I can guarantee you that.”

Sheriffs officials have disclosed little about how Abril could have escaped from the hospital, other than to say the deputy had not fallen asleep while watching the suspect.

Abril had been taken to the medical center in an ambulance Thursday after experiencing some sort of medical event, one that a source has said involved Abril having seizures.

On Sunday morning at about 3, scanner traffic indicated that Abril was seen going out the doors of Sutter Roseville Hospital on the north side and headed toward a greenbelt.

“Was he leg shackled and chained?” a deputy asked.

Another deputy, apparently the one assigned to guard him, said Abril escaped from the second floor of the medical center.

“I saw him exit the second floor, run down the stairs and exit the building,” he said. “When I exited the door behind him that’s when I lost contact.”

“Just confirming,” another officer replied. “Which exit did he leave from and did he make any phone calls while you were watching him?”

“Negative about phone calls. He ran out of the west exit to the greenbelt by Labor and Delivery.”

The escape set off almost immediate efforts to find Abril, with scanner traffic describing efforts to set up a three-quarter mile perimeter around the area and notify two area hotels that an escapee was in the area.

While officials made calls to other agencies looking for air support to join the search, others called for more help.

“If it hasn’t been done already, see if Rocklin and Roseville has drones, and see if we can start getting hold of a couple of day-shift people to come in,” one officer said.

Within the hour, the entire day shift had been called in and eventually more than 200 officers from throughout the region would join the effort.

But Abril still was nowhere to be found.

He apparently had disappeared into wooded areas along Antelope Creek between Roseville and Rocklin, and the only confirmed sighting of him came from a homeowner’s security camera that caught him walking through a yard on Rainier Court in Rocklin.

That led searchers to focus on the area, staging an all-night effort targeting the Antelope Creek area where authorities used dogs, drones and heat-sensing equipment to try and find Abril in the dark.

That effort failed overnight, but officials stayed focused on the area, and by Monday just after noon a resident of Zion Court who was going out to walk his dog was alerted by the dog’s barking that there was a man in the underbrush behind his home along the creek.

He called 911, and within minutes Abril was back in custody.