SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A Southern California man convicted of killing his mother as a teenager was captured in Mexico a week after he walked away from a halfway house, violating the conditions of his probation, authorities said.
Ike Nicholas Souzer, 20, was arrested Wednesday in the coastal city of Rosarito by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials, the Orange County District Attorney’s Office said. He was returned to California.
During the weeklong manhunt, the district attorney's office described Souzer as dangerous and violent.
Souzer had already served his sentence for stabbing his mother to death in 2017, when he was 13. He was subsequently convicted on a vandalism charge and served a short sentence, then released from custody March 20, prosecutors said.
The judge in that case also sentenced Souzer to two years of probation.
This was the second time Souzer disappeared from a halfway house. In 2022, he was let out of jail and moved to a halfway house in Santa Ana where he removed his electronic monitor and left. He was later captured by police.
Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said Souzer deserved harsher sentences and blamed judges who have handled his cases.
“My prosecutors have spent years and years trying to do everything they can to keep this violent criminal behind bars, and at every turn, the very judges who are elected to protect public safety have done little to do so and instead have given him break after break after break,” Spitzer said in a statement.
Souzer was convicted of voluntary manslaughter in the death of his mother. His defense attorney argued that the killing was in self-defense and said the teen had experienced years of abuse, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Souzer has also been charged with three attacks on correctional officers, possessing a shank in jail, and most recently, drawing graffiti on a freeway underpass, prosecutors said.
He also escaped a juvenile detention facility in 2019.
This undated photo provided by the Orange County District Attorney's Office shows Ike Nicholas Souzer. The Southern California man convicted of killing his mother as a teenager was captured in Mexico a week after he walked away from a halfway house, violating the conditions of his probation, authorities said. Souzer was arrested Wednesday, March 27, 2024, in the coastal city of Rosarito by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials. (Orange County District Attorney's Office via AP)
This undated photo provided by the Orange County District Attorney's Office shows Ike Nicholas Souzer. The Southern California man convicted of killing his mother as a teenager was captured in Mexico a week after he walked away from a halfway house, violating the conditions of his probation, authorities said. Souzer was arrested Wednesday, March 27, 2024, in the coastal city of Rosarito by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Mexican officials. (Orange County District Attorney's Office via AP)
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — It took Naval Academy plebes two hours, 19 minutes and 11 seconds Wednesday to accomplish the ultimate in upward mobility: scaling a greased obelisk and swapping out a cup with a cap.
The annual grueling, slippery ritual marking the completion of the plebe year ended with 20-year-old Californian Ben Leisegang standing victorious on the shoulders of scores of classmates and placing an upperclassman’s hat atop the Herndon Monument.
The Class of 2027 worked together to scale the 21-foot (6-meter) obelisk covered in vegetable shortening to replace a white plebe “Dixie cup hat" with the upperclassman’s hat. There are about 1,300 plebes in the class, according to academy spokesperson Elizabeth B. Wrightson. After the climb is complete, they’re called fourth class midshipmen, not plebes.
It's said that the person who gets the hat to the top of the monument will be the first admiral in the class.
Plebes linked arms around the monument’s base to build a pyramid, clearing grease from the monument’s surface, enduring a constant soaking spray from hoses.
Around the two-hour mark, one plebe finally got close enough to place the upperclassman’s hat near the obelisk’s pinnacle, but the Dixie cup remained in place. Minutes later, the same plebe whipped the top of the obelisk, still lathered white with shortening, with a waterlogged shirt, knocking down the upperclassman’s hat.
The hat was handed back up, and he finally slid the upperclassman’s hat into place, knocking down the Dixie cup hat and prompting uproarious cheers from the crowd below.
Academy Superintendent Vice Adm. Yvette M. Davids congratulated the class and introduced Leisegang, a midshipman fourth class from Rancho Santa Margarita, California. He is in the 4th Company.
“All I have to say is: We went out there. We executed on the controllables, and that was working together,” Leisegang said. “Let’s Go!”
Noting that they are a link in a chain, Davids passed on messages from the class of 1977, urging them to never forget what it’s like to be a plebe and asking them to give “fair winds and following seas” to the class of 2077.
“You represent so much, not just the past but the future,” Davids said.
The climb began in 1940, and the placement of an officer’s cap atop the obelisk to show they had conquered the plebe year came seven years later, according to a history of the event by James Cheevers, the former senior curator at the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. Upperclassmen first smeared grease on the monument to increase the difficulty in 1949. They first put the Dixie cup atop the monument before the climb in 1962.
Records of how long it took each class to scale the monument aren’t complete, but the shortest time is believed to be 1 minute, 30 seconds in 1969, a year the monument wasn’t greased. The longest was more than four hours in 1995, when upperclassmen glued down the Dixie cup.
Cold Plebes embrace during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Plebe Ben Leisegang, of California, attempts to place an upperclassman's hat atop the Herndon Monument at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Plebe Ben Leisegang, of California, places an upperclassman's hat atop the Herndon Monument at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Plebe Ben Leisegang, of California, celebrates after successfully placing an upperclassman's hat atop the Herndon Monument at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Class of 2027 Plebes celebrate after completing during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Plebes climb the Herndon Monument at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Plebe Ben Leisegang, of California, places an upperclassman's hat atop the Herndon Monument at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Attendees watch Plebes climb the Herndon Monument at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Class of 2027 plebes climb during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minutes and eleven seconds. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
The "Dixie Cup" and an upperclassmen's cap sit together atop the 21 foot Herndon Monument during a failed attempt by "Plebes" to remove the cup, during the annual Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minsters and eleven seconds to complete. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Class of 2027 plebes climb during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minsters and eleven seconds to complete. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Class of 2027 plebes climb during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minsters and eleven seconds to complete. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
Class of 2027 plebes climb during the Herndon Monument Climb at the U.S. Naval Academy, Wednesday, May 15, 2024, in Annapolis, Md. Freshmen, known as Plebes, participate in the climb to celebrate finishing their first year at the academy. The climb was completed in two hours, nineteen minsters and eleven seconds to complete. (AP Photo/Tom Brenner)
