Escaped minimum-security inmate found in woods near Pelican Bay Prison

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An inmate who walked away from a minimum-support facility at Pelican Bay State Prison was apprehended within hours of being discovered missing, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced Tuesday.

Tore Digirolamo, 44, went missing Monday afternoon from his bunk at the prison’s minimum-support facility, spurring a search by Pelican Bay officers, the California Highway Patrol, the Crescent City Police Department, the Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The facility for nonviolent inmates is located outside the secure perimeter of the main prison.

Digirolamo, who is serving a four-year sentence for second-degree burglary, was found hiding in the nearby woods around 7:30pm Monday and was returned to the prison without incident, the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation stated. He was rehoused in the Administrative Segregation Unit.

According to the corrections department, there were more than 19,300 escapes from California’s adult prisons, camps and in-state contract beds between 1977 and 2012. The vast majority of escaped people were apprehended --98.5 percent -- but some 283 others were not.

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emily.alpert@latimes.com