N.Va. Prisoner Lost in Translation

"Yes, it has adjusted," Voss said. "Has it adjusted as fast as I would have liked it to adjust? Probably not."

When Cruz's brother did not call back, Voss spent weekends and nights trying to find him. He even hired a private investigator. Neither had success. Two addresses are listed for Cruz -- one that does not exist, and another where no one seems to live.

All that is known about Cruz is what can be pieced together from court records: He is 25, from Mexico and lives in Manassas. He worked as a contractor in Warrenton, earning $20,800 a year. He claimed to have no bank account, no real estate, no car.

It appears he's still in the area. Manassas police charged him July 2 with stealing beer from a 7-Eleven and issued a summons to appear in court this month.

"He's out there somewhere. I just wish I could find him," Voss said, adding that he is not surprised that Cruz chose to drift into a familiar anonymity. "They are told to keep a low profile, keep your head below the bushes."

Cruz's legal problems started Oct. 15.

He was charged with being drunk in public and fighting with another man. An officer who arrived at the scene wrote in a criminal complaint that Cruz's blood alcohol level was .175, more than twice the legal limit, and that the other man had a large gash on the right side of his head from being punched and hit with a belt.

When the wounded man did not show up in court Dec. 12, the case was dismissed. And that's where it should have ended. Normally, jail officials would have taken Cruz to the courthouse for the hearing, and the court clerk would have issued a release order for him. He could have walked into freedom that day.

But neither happened.

"It seems like there was a breakdown on a couple of levels," said Tawny G. Hays, clerk of the General District Court.

From the beginning, his last name was entered as "Antonio Cruz" in court documents and as "Cruz" in jail records -- a problem that both jail and court officials say often arises with Hispanic names that tend to be long and include an also-known-as.

Col. Charles "Skip" Land, who heads the jail, said the name might explain why officials failed to take Cruz to court Dec. 12. "Some people also come in with a hyphen between their name and then don't come up unless that hyphen is typed in," he said.