Jail breakout try attempts to free Max Wade MARIN COUNTY

A brazen attempt early Friday morning to bust into Marin County Juvenile Hall and spring a teenage shooting suspect being held in the daring heist of a Lamborghini is the latest bizarre twist in an already stranger-than-fiction case.

At least two people used bolt cutters to breach outer and interior fences around the detention facility off Lucas Valley Road in San Rafael, but repeated blows with a sledgehammer failed to break open the thick reinforced window in the isolation cell where Max Wade was being held.

The suspects dropped the sledgehammer and bolt cutters and fled on foot as Marin County sheriff's officers arrived. They are believed to have escaped in a waiting vehicle.

The bold, 4:35 a.m. break-in attempt ushered in Wade's 18th birthday, which was also the day he was scheduled to be moved in with the adults at Marin County Jail.

"Not in my 23 years have I ever heard of anything like this," said Michael Daly, the county's chief probation officer. "It was a little tense. ... We are unarmed inside the facility and we called the sheriff right away, but from that time until the sheriff arrived, there was a certain amount of terror."

Wade is being held on $2 million bail and faces seven felony counts, including two charges of attempted murder for allegedly firing five shots this spring at a 17-year-old girl who had spurned him and the man she was sitting with in a parked vehicle in Mill Valley.

He is also accused of rappelling from the roof of a San Francisco auto dealership on March 8, 2011, cutting the locks on the showroom door and stealing a yellow Lamborghini owned by celebrity chef Guy Fieri.

Marin County sheriff's detectives said they discovered the $200,000 car - along with a trove of guns, contraband and other incriminating evidence - inside Wade's Richmond storage locker after they connected him through surveillance videos to the April 13 shooting.

Local legend

The latest incident will surely add to Wade's local legend as a teenage wizard of crime, even though investigators have yet to find evidence that he was a collaborator in the apparent jail-break attempt.

Sheriff's Lt. Barry Heying said he believes two or more people cut the outer and inner perimeter fences along the south wall of the juvenile housing unit, on 16 Jeannette Prandi Way in a remote area of San Rafael. The culprits, who may have slunk along a walking path outside the fences, made their way to the outside of the 6-by-9-foot cell where Wade was housed.

Wade's cell window is 8 to 10 feet above the ground, Daly said, most likely requiring the sledgehammer-wielding intruder to laboriously swing upward over his head.

There are no alarms on the perimeter fences, so the first indication that something was wrong was when staffers inside Juvenile Hall heard a thumping sound, Daly said. The 13 juveniles housed in the unit were hustled out, he said, after a worker went to investigate the noise and realized someone was trying to smash the cell window.

The fear among the unarmed staffers was exacerbated because they couldn't see how many people were out there and had no idea what kind of mayhem they were likely to commit, he said.

"Max was long gone out of the room, and they kept hitting," said Daly, who estimated that the sledgehammer hit the window 15 or 20 times. "They were still thumping while he was being moved and the other kids were being moved."

Heying said detectives found the sledgehammer and bolt cutters next to the building and a backpack full of clothing about a block away in the middle of Huckleberry Road, apparently left by the suspects. Officers and search dogs scoured the area for two hours, but no arrests were made, he said.

Studying calls, video

Investigators plan to listen to recordings of Wade's telephone calls, if they are still available, look at surveillance video and interview potential witnesses, Heying said.

"We haven't uncovered any evidence that he played an active role in this," Heying said, but "had the break-in been successful it would have provided access to only that one cell."

"He was aware, certainly, that he was turning 18 today," and was therefore going to be moved to the adult facility, he said.

Daly said juvenile justice officials will be looking into whether additional security measures, including alarms on the perimeter fences, should be put in place.