A Southern California man convicted of murdering his mother as a teenager was apprehended in Mexico a week after walking away from a halfway house, breaking the terms of his probation, authorities said.
Following a week-long manhunt, US Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials apprehended Ike Nicholas Souzer, 20, in the seaside city of Rosarito on Wednesday, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office. Orange County is once again holding him.
In a news release, the district attorney’s office labeled Souzer as an “extremely dangerous and violent criminal.”
Souzer had previously served his term for fatally murdering his mother in 2017, when he was 13. Authorities subsequently convicted him of vandalism, handed down a short sentence, and released him from detention on March 20.
The judge in that instance also sentenced Souzer to two years of probation.
This was Souzer’s second disappearance from a halfway house. In 2022, he was released from jail and transferred to a halfway house in Santa Ana, where he removed his electronic monitor and departed. He was later apprehended by the police. Souzer turned off his electronic monitoring device again during his recent escape, according to CBS Los Angeles.
He also escaped from a juvenile correctional facility in 2019.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer claimed Souzer deserved stiffer penalties and faulted the judges who handled his cases.
“This is not a person who deserves leniency; he has turned every opportunity to turn over a new leaf into another opportunity to breach the law and defy law enforcement. “He did not simply walk away and forget to check in with his probation officer,” Spitzer stated in a news release. “The second he was out of custody, he set a plan in motion to flee to a foreign country in yet another attempt to escape the consequences of his actions.”
The court found Souzer guilty of voluntary manslaughter in his mother’s death. According to the Los Angeles Times, his defense attorney asserted that the teen had suffered years of abuse and that the death was a result of self-defense.
Prosecutors have also charged Souzer with three attacks on correctional guards, possession of a firearm in jail, and, most recently, scribbling graffiti on a freeway underpass.
