SANTA ANA (CNS) - Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer's office Thursday issued a warning to the public that a man convicted of fatally stabbing his mother when he was 13 years old walked away from a halfway house shortly after pleading guilty to painting graffiti on a freeway underpass.
Ike Souzer was convicted in October of making a shank while in Orange County Jail in Santa Ana and sentenced to three years behind bars, but the sentence was structured so that he would be freed in a few months.
However, Souzer ran afoul of the law again on Jan. 21 when he painted the image of a girl on a freeway underpass. He pleaded guilty to that Tuesday and Orange County Superior Court Judge Larry Yellin sentenced him to 90 days and placed him on two years of formal probation.
Souzer was released because he already had 118 days credit behind bars, according to court records.
Souzer checked into Project Kinship after he was released in the vandalism case, but then he left and did not return and failed to tell his probation officer where he was, prosecutors said.
Deputy District Attorney Matthew Bradbury objected, noting his conviction for voluntary manslaughter in 2017, his escape from juvenile hall in April 2019, and his conviction for attacking three correctional officers.
Souzer's attorney, David Isaac Hammond of the Orange County Public Defender's Office, countered with the physical and emotional abuse he suffered as a child.
Yellin, however, said he would not consider those arguments because the crime he was considering was non-violent, according to court records.
Souzer previously made headlines in April 2022 when he freed himself of his electronic monitoring device and escaped custody in a halfway house in Santa Ana. While in custody on the fatal stabbing he was convicted in December 2021 for attacking the correctional officers and was ordered to wear the electronic monitor for the remainder of his sentence until it expired on July 9, 2023.
While on trial in juvenile court for the killing of his 47-year-old mother, Barbara Scheuer-Souzer, he escaped juvenile hall in Orange shortly after midnight April 12, 2019, and was arrested the next day at a McDonald's in Anaheim.
Souzer stabbed his mother in their residence in the 11000 block of Gilbert Street in Garden Grove on May 4, 2017. She told authorities before she died in a hospital that her son was the one who attacked her.
Hammond previously argued in court that his client was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from physical and emotional abuse as a child. Souzer and his siblings were taken away from his parents, but he was the only one returned to his mother, Hammond said.
Hammond said Souzer never had a normal adolescent experience like going to high school or getting a driver's license and that explains why when he was briefly released from custody he performed poorly. Hammond said his client benefited from self-help and educational programs while in Juvenile Hall such as anger management, creative writing and art.
According to court papers, Souzer told investigators when he was arrested for his mother's stabbing that he had been subjected to verbal and physical abuse at his mother's hands in the past. He claimed he was using the knife in self-defense after he got into a heated conflict over household chores, according to court papers.
During his trial for the killing, the defendant testified that he did not think he had mortally wounded his mother, who was terrified of knives, according to court papers. Souzer also testified that "he loved his mother and just wanted her to stop hurting him and for their relationship to be good," according to court papers.