FORKS – A teenager was charged with third-degree escape earlier this month for giving a juvenile probation officer the slip and vanishing into the forest.
The 16-year-old is scheduled to appear in Clallam County juvenile court on Jan. 24.
The teen was being driven from the West End to the Clallam County Youth Center in Port Angeles on Nov. 13 when he said that he had to use a lavatory, court documents say.
The closest facilities were at the Mount Muller/Littleton Loop trailhead, about a quarter mile off U.S. Highway 101 and six miles west of Lake Crescent.
The teen was not in handcuffs when he used the outhouse.
He came out after a couple minutes and asked for toilet paper.
The probation officer gave him napkins.
The teen “began walking back toward the outhouse and apparently ran up the mountain,” court documents say.
The probation officer “was not aware at first that (the teen) had taken off because the outhouse blocked his view of the trail behind it,” the documents say.
A Forest Service Agent and a trained dog searched unsuccessfully for the teen.
The teen later called his grandmother in Forks to tell her that he was in Port Angeles but he wouldn’t give a specific location, documents say.
