The attorney for a man who fatally stabbed his mother when he was 13 years old defended his client Friday after Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer’s office issued a warning to the public that the man walked away from a halfway house and was at-large.
Ike Souzer — who had already escaped from custody twice before — 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 a mural on a freeway underpass, his attorney, David Isaac Hammond of the Orange County Public Defender’s Office, said. 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.
Spitzer’s office on Thursday issued a news release labeling Souzer an “extremely dangerous and violent criminal.”
As part of his sentence in the jail shank case, Souzer was to stay at Project Kinship and obey all the rules and curfew there, Hammond said. He did not have to reside at the halfway house and could ask for permission from probation officials to move elsewhere, Hammond said.
When Souzer was released in the vandalism case, “He was released like anybody else … The only thing he’s done wrong is not meet with his probation officer,” Hammond said. “He’s just supposed to tell them where he is.”
The 90-day sentence was what probation officials recommended in the vandalism, Hammond said. The mural “was actually very artistic,” he added.
Project Kinship offers a variety of therapeutic services, and Souzer draws and paints because it is therapeutic, Hammond said.
Deputy District Attorney Matthew Bradbury objected to the 90-day sentence, noting Souzer’s conviction for voluntary manslaughter in 2017, his escape from juvenile hall in April 2019, and his conviction for attacking three correctional officers.
Hammond countered with the physical and emotional abuse his client allegedly suffered as a child.
Yellin, however, said he would not consider those arguments because the crime he was considering was nonviolent, according to court records. Yellin said he handed down the same sentence he would for anyone else, Hammond said.
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, prosecutors said. 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.