Homeless man claims $100k reward for Orange County fugitives

A homeless man who reported spotting two escaped inmates from Orange County in San Francisco in January will receive a $100,000 reward.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors approved the reward for Matthew Hay-Chapman at its meeting on Tuesday night, according to the county.

Hay-Chapman saw the two escaped inmates, Hossein Nayeri, 37, and Jonathan Tieu, 20, on Jan. 30 parked near Golden Gate Park in a white van they had stolen in Southern California and driven to the Bay Area.

He watched Nayeri go into the McDonald’s at 730 Stanyan St. and called police while keeping his eye on Nayeri, Orange County officials said.

When police arrived, Nayeri tried to flee, but Hay-Chapman told them which direction he’d run in, and Nayeri was quickly arrested along with Tieu.

Nayeri was in jail on kidnapping and torture charges and Tieu on murder charges. They escaped on Jan. 22 along with a third inmate, Bac Duong, 43, then stole the van from a Craigslist seller and hijacked a taxi, forcing the driver to take them to San Jose.

Duong left Tieu and Nayeri in San Jose after an argument over whether to kill the taxi driver and eventually surrendered. The other two were spotted the next day in San Francisco.

The county had approved a $150,000 reward, one for each inmate.

Of the remaining $50,000, $15,000 each will be given to two Target employees who noticed the inmates shopping there after their escape and provided investigators with receipts for their prepaid cellphones. The victim of the van theft will get $20,000, Orange County officials said.

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