Inmate Descends on Sheets, Escapes

Authorities were searching Monday for a suspected armed robber who escaped from Los Angeles County Central Jail over the weekend by climbing down three stories on a rope fashioned from bedsheets.

The escapee, Keith Lee Williams, 28, of Los Angeles, was awaiting trial on armed residential robbery charges when he escaped from the facility on Bauchet Street just north of the Civic Center, according to a Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

The escape was discovered Sunday morning when deputies at the jail were making a routine security check and found a row of tied sheets dangling to the ground from the third-floor roof of the facility. It was determined that Williams was missing after officials conducted a head count of the more than 6,580 inmates at the facility.