By Ruth Brown
The Bakersfield Californian
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — As Holly Connolly read the newspaper Thursday morning, she saw the photo of a man who had walked away from a Taft prison July 11.
When she looked up he was sitting right in front of her.
Connolly, of Bakersfield, was sitting outside the Starbucks at Auburn and Oswell streets when she saw who she believed was Lionel Alvarez, 34. Alvarez walked away from the minimum-security facility at Taft Correctional Institution.
She immediately left her table around 11:10 a.m. with her “heart racing” and called the prison’s designated phone number to report the sighting. When the prison’s operator transferred her to the extension, it rang three times before she reached voice mail. The voice mail box was full, so she couldn’t leave a message.
“I was flabbergasted. I couldnt believe it,” Connolly said. “I was astounded that one of their missing inmates (was found) and they didn’t even care enough to make sure they got me to a live person before that call ended.”
Connolly, 45, was drinking a drip coffee and reading a Tuesday copy of The Californian at the Starbucks she vists about once a week. Nothing was out of the ordinary.
The man whom she believes was Alvarez was at the table acrosss from her for about 45 minutes and didn’t appear to be any different than other customers.
He sat alone, bought nothing and was looking at something in his lap that Connolly assumed was a cellphone. She thought he was there to use the free Wi-Fi service.
She and the man spoke briefly once, commenting on how the beeping noise coming from a nearby United Parcel Service truck was irritating.
It could not been confirmed the man she saw was Alvarez.
Efforts to contact Taft Correctional Institution officials Thursday were unsuccessful. A prison operator transferred calls to a number whose voice mail message box was full.
Before escaping July 11, Alvarez was serving a 189-month term for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute cocaine. His aliases include “Frog” and “Frog Dog.”
He is described as Hispanic, 5 feet 7 inches tall and weighing about 190 pounds with brown hair and eyes. He has numerous tattoos including horses, skulls and flames on his top right arm, an eagle and snake at the top of his stomach, an Aztec collage on his back and an Aztec skull collage on his top left arm.
Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to call the Taft Correctional Institution at 763-2510.
Copyright 2014 The Bakersfield Californian