A convicted teen murderer on furlough cut off his ankle monitor and vanished for two days in Orange County.
Jose Aguilar has now been caught, but the incident has raised troubling questions.
The Anaheim SWAT team tracked Aguilar down to a Buena Park motel room on Thursday night.
The probation department says they were made aware that the court granted Aguilar access to an academic furlough in February. On March 6, they went to the courts and asked them to revoke the furlough access due to concerns about probation violations.
The court did not revoke the access, and four days later — on Tuesday, March 10 — he cut off his GPS monitor.
Aguilar — now 22 years old — was taking weekly classes at Santiago Canyon College in the city of Orange when he reportedly cut off the GPS device and absconded, triggering a manhunt involving probation and law enforcement agencies.
Anaheim police investigated Aguilar’s murder case back in 2021, and when they found out he was missing, they jumped in to help find him.
For Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner, this case is raising a lot of red flags and questions about academic furloughs.
“How could this happen? How can we let these folks out? We spend a lot of money at the county, and I know at the state prison system, to run education programs. I don’t know why those weren’t good enough,” Wagner said. “This is a state law that allows this. I don’t know whether the judge’s hands were tied and he had to do it or what, but it’s a bad program. It’s a bad idea, and there’s no good reason why these folks who are dangerous to the community should be roaming free.”
Wagner says he is working with the District Attorney’s Office to potentially bring legislation forward suggesting a change to the furloughs. They are run by the juvenile court, and a spokesperson for Orange County courts says they are ethically prohibited from discussing the case.
Santiago Canyon College says it is reviewing coordination and notification procedures related to academic furloughs.
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