LOS ANGELES, Oct. 21 – After sawing two sets of bars and squeezing through a tiny window 170 feet above the sidewalk, a Manson “family” member gained his freedom from the County Jail atop the Hall of Justice early Wednesday — for seven hours.

Kenneth (Curly) Como, 31, risked his life repeatedly clawing his way down the side of the Civic Center building on makeshift ropes made of torn blankets and mattress covers. He fled unseen in predawn hours.

But he made his escape in a vehicle well known to local lawmen: the battered van in which some members of the Manson clan had slept for more than a year outside the Hall of Justice.

Como’s disappearance was discovered at 3:15 a.m. An alarm was broadcast immediately. At 3:30, the van was spotted in West Hollywood by two sheriff’s officers.

Pursued, the van caromed off a parked car and slowed to a halt, with a man and a woman sprinting from it into the darkness.

Officers quickly caught and arrested Sandra (Sandy) Good Pugh, 27, who had shaved her head and scratched an X in her forehead to prove her devotion to imprisoned Charles Manson, the “family’s” leader.

Como, described by detectives as an escape artist, disappeared.

Sheriff’s officers sealed off a two-block area, searched cars by the glare of flares, hunted backyards on foot and by the searchlight of a low-flying helicopter, then waited for dawn for an intensive sweep.

At 9.35 a.m., Dep. Roger Anderson opened a storage shed behind 1545 Gardner St. and leveled his pistol at the standing figure of Como.

“Freeze,” said Anderson.

Como froze. His only comment was an expletive. He was taken without resistance back into the custody from which he had fled seven hours earlier.

The daring escape, one of the most spectacular in the 45-year history of the jail, brought these immediate repercussions:

Detectives raided a home in the Silverlake area and picked up five persons identified as members of the Manson family. It brought to 17 the Manson followers now in jail or prison.
– In the Hall of Justice court where Manson is being tried for the 1969 murders of musician Gary Hinman and ranchhand Donald (Shorty) Shea, Manson’s attorney charged that sheriff’s officers allowed Como to escape to generate unfavorable publicity for Manson.

—An investigation was begun in the County Jail facilities in the top six floors of the 15-story Hall of Justice to determine how a four-inch-long piece of carborundum blade was smuggled to Como, enabling him to saw his way to freedom.

Last July, he and Warren Marchaelette Jr., 19, escaped from a holding tank in the old Hall of Records by lowering themselves from a window on a rope made of jail denims.

Como had been brought from Folsom Prison to testify at Marchaelette’s trial on murder charges. It was apparently while Como was mingling with jailed members of the Manson clan that he decided to join the “family.”

Among those who maintained a constant vigil outside the Hall of Justice during Manson’s 9 ½ month-long trial in the Tate-LaBianca murders were Mrs. Pugh, Lynn Fromme, 23, Katherine (Kitty) Lutesinger, 19, Catherine (Gypsy) Share, 26, and Mary Brunner, 26.

They swore they would stay until Manson was freed. At night they slept in the battered white van. The Hall of Justice also is headquarters of the sheriff’s office, and the vehicle became a familiar sight to hundreds of sheriff’s officers.

Two months ago, a gun battle erupted during an unsuccessful attempt by five men and women to steal 140 guns from a Hawthorne store. The five were identified as Manson family members. Among them were Como, Miss Share and Miss Brunner.

Officers said they might have wanted the guns to attempt to free Manson.

Como was placed in a “high power” tank on the 13th floor of the Hall of Justice, under special supervision, to await trial on charges of attempted murder.

There are six cells in the short cell block. Outside them is a corridor, also surrounded by bars, which is used by prisoners for exercising. Beyond that is a corridor for guards and on the west side of this walkway, windows covered with heavy mesh.

Undersheriff William McCloud reconstructed Como’s escape:

Somehow, someone smuggled him a piece of carborundum blade, sharper than a hacksaw and made of hardened steel capable of sawing heavy steel. It was bound with string to a safety-razor handle.

Working over a period of perhaps several days, Como sawed through two 1 ¼ inch bars near the head of his bunk, creating a 12 inch square opening. He used soap to hide the cuts until he was ready to pull the bars loose.

He may also have worked several days on sawing through a ¼ inch-thick, 2 inch wide plate on top of an 11-by-7-inch opening used for passing food from the guards’ corridor into the prisoners’ exercise area.

At 2 a.m. Wednesday, jailers removed a prisoner who was complaining of illness from an adjacent cell, leaving Como alone in the cell block.

At 2:14 a.m., a jailer made a routine check of Como’s 7-by-10-foot cell. Como was in his bunk.

It was after that that the prisoner made his break. He tore blankets and mattress covers into two makeshift ropes, one about 12 feet long, the other more than 30 feet long. He broke loose the two bars and slipped his 137-pound, 5-foot-7-inch frame through the 12 inch-square opening from his cell and into the exercise corridor.

He then skinned through the tiny food opening into the guard’s corridor, found a window with a wire screen loose enough to pry open, tied one of his lines around a window jam and somehow forced his body through a 6 ½ by 11 ½ inch window.

He was 170 feet above N. Broadway, but hidden in the shadows behind the pillars which rise from the 11th to the 15th floors of the Hall of Justice. The elaborate pillars, cornices and balustrades of the structure’s 1925 design helped Como make his escape.

He used one of his lines to descend to a ledge at the base of the pillars, walked along it to near the building’s northwest corner, then tied his second line to an ornamental balustrade.

From there, he swung into space from the side of the building more than 100 feet in the air, clearly visible to anyone below. He dropped down to the eighth floor — the first below the jail and its administrative offices — and crashed through a window into Superior Court Department 101.

From there, it was easy for him to descend to the lobby and — possibly mingling with janitorial workers on lunch break — exit via the Broadway entrance. He apparently got out of the building shortly after 3 a.m.

Detectives believe Mrs. Pugh was waiting for him in the van. They had gone less than 10 miles, to West Hollywood, when Det. Sgts. Frank Linley and Billy Hoffman of the Sheriff’s Metropolitan Detail saw the familiar Manson family van on Sunset Blvd.

The brief chase ended in the 1500 block of Curson Ave.

Later, searching the van, officers found — amid mattresses, a tambourine and old clothes — a half-dozen sheath knives.

Mrs. Pugh was booked on suspicion of aiding and abetting an escape, as were the others arrested in Silverlake: Miss Lutesinger, Miss Fromme, Nancy Pitman, 23, Susan Bartel, 20, and David Stauffer, 20.

At the Manson trial, which is expected to go to the jury this week. Superior Judge Raymond Choate dismissed as ridiculous defense attorney Irving Kanarek’ s contention that Como had been allowed to escape. He refused Kanarek’s request for a hearing into the escape.

Manson was convicted last April of the five Tate and two LaBianca murders, as were three women followers. Charles (Tex) Watson has been found guilty of the same crimes and is awaiting a penalty verdict.

Manson was in a 10th-floor cell at the time of Como’s flight. However, sheriff’s officers said, Como’s route took him no place near Manson’s cell. There were more than 2,000 prisoners in the Hall of Justice facility early Wednesday.

The undersheriff was showing newsmen the cell from which Como had escaped when he received word that Como had been arrested.

“When you get him back,” a reporter asked, “where are you going to put him?”

McCloud smiled, somewhat grimly.

“I think I’ll take him home with me,” he said.

BY DOUG SHUIT and DIAL TORGERSON