A 21-year-old man convicted of fatally stabbing his mother when he was 13 admitted violating probation when he left custody earlier this year and was arrested in Rosarito, Mexico, following a weeklong manhunt.
Ike Nicholas Souzer admitted he violated terms of his probation when he failed to report his whereabouts to his probation officer and absconded, his attorney, David Isaac Hammond of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, said.
Orange County Superior Court Judge Craig Robison told Souzer he would have to complete the three-year sentence handed down in a conviction in October of making a shank while in the Central Men’s Jail in Santa Ana.
The three-year sentence had been structured so he would be freed a few months later, but he ran afoul of the law again on Jan. 21 when he painted a mural of his girlfriend, who died, on the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway underpass at 190 S. Yorba St. in Orange.
Souzer pleaded guilty March 20 and was sentenced to 90 days for the graffiti and placed on two years of formal probation. He was released then because he had credit for that time behind bars, but as part of the shank case he was to stay at Project Kinship and obey all the rules and curfew there.
Souzer was being taken to a transitional housing location in Santa Ana March 20, but he left and did not return, touching off the manhunt that led to his arrest at the border.
Prosecutors argued for an additional year for Souzer, making the punishment four years.
Souzer has about another 100 days to serve in jail before Hammond can return to Robison and get permission to transfer him to a transitional youth house catering to 18 to 24-year-olds, Hammond said. He could serve the rest of his sentence there, where he would be helped with financial literacy and other self-help programs, Hammond said.
“It gave him a bit of an incentive to keep doing what he’s doing,” Hammond said of Souzer, who has been actively participating in self-help programs in jail.
Hammond unsuccessfully filed a motion to recuse the Orange County District Attorney’s Office from the case due to public statements District Attorney Todd Spizer has made declaring Souzer a danger to the community.
Spitzer’s criticism of judges who have handled Souzer’s past cases drew the ire of retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Gary Pohlson, who called the top prosecutor’s comments “totally inappropriate” and “reckless.”
Souzer has had multiple run-ins with the law since his teen years.
He was convicted of killing his 47-year-old mother, Barbara Scheuer-Souzer when he was 13 years old at their residence in the 11000 block of Gilbert Street in Garden Grove on May 4, 2017.
During that trial in juvenile court he escaped juvenile hall in Orange April 12, 2019, and was arrested the next day.
He made headlines again in April 2022 when he freed himself of his electronic monitoring device and escaped custody in a halfway house in Santa Ana.
He was convicted in December 2021 for attacking three correctional officers.
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.
Hammond has said Souzer 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.