Friend of Family Held in Kidnaping : Laotian Boy Back Home With Mother

A Vietnamese baker involved in what detectives described as a “refugee Peyton Place” was booked into the San Diego County Jail on Thursday on suspicion of kidnaping a 3-year-old Laotian boy missing since Monday.

Loc Quang Le, 32, was being held on $7,500 bail and is expected to be formally charged by Monday in the disappearance of Santi (Ole) Khamtong. The boy was returned to his tearful mother, Soutchay Khamtong, early Thursday morning after being found unharmed in Tijuana.

“I love you, I love you, my baby,” Khamtong, 23, cried in broken English as she was reunited with her son at the San Diego Police Department’s Western Division substation.

Detectives said Thursday they had yet to determine a motive in the kidnaping.

Ole was last seen Monday afternoon playing outside the Linda Vista apartment he shares with his divorced mother and infant sister. His disappearance prompted a massive, but unsuccessful, search throughout Linda Vista, where a majority of San Diego’s 40,000 Indochinese refugees live.

According to detectives, Le, who lives in the 6200 block of Osler Street, admitted that he drove Ole to Tijuana on Monday afternoon, gave him $20 and inexplicably left him with a Mexican family that Le said he had randomly chosen. The Mexican family fed the boy and later that day turned him over to Tijuana police, who took him to the Tijuana House for Abandoned Children.

That’s where San Diego police officers on Wednesday night found Ole, who does not speak English.

“He was as happy, I suppose, as any 3-year-old away from his mother can be,” said San Diego police Sgt. Fred Hoyle, who supervised the search for Ole. “We’re still trying to sort out exactly what happened. This thing seems to be just like a ‘Peyton Place,’ only involving refugees.”

Le’s Laotian wife, Amphone Phanthamath, 22, is a close friend of Ole’s mother, Khamtong. In addition, Le’s 23-year-old brother-in-law, Vankham Phanthamath, a machinist who lives in Linda Vista with Le and Amphone, is Khamtong’s boyfriend, detectives said.

Hoyle said that Le drove Amphone Phanthamath to Khamtong’s studio apartment Monday morning so the two women could go grocery shopping. Khamtong left Ole and Ole’s 9-month-old sister with a baby sitter, Khonemany Phathammavong, 17, a junior at Kearny Mesa High School.

Le later returned to the apartment looking for his wife, who was still out shopping, Hoyle said. Le spoke briefly to the baby sitter and then left--allegedly with Ole. The baby sitter, however, told investigators that she never saw the boy leave the apartment complex in the 2200 block of Ulric Street.

When the baby sitter could not find Ole, she and others searched the complex without success. The Police Department was then called.

At its peak Tuesday, the search effort involved more than 150 police officers, sheriff’s deputies, Navy teams, civilian volunteers and tracking dogs. They scoured the Linda Vista area but could find no trace of the missing boy. By Wednesday, only five investigators continued to work full-time on the case. Two of them, Detectives Rick Roda and Tom Tuzza, decided to interview Khamtong and her acquaintances again, Hoyle said.

“We began comparing stories and one thing led to another, and we began to suspect Mr. Le,” Hoyle said. “We asked Le (Wednesday afternoon) if he would take a polygraph and he said he would. While we were driving him over for the test, he admitted that he took the boy to Tijuana. He has not said why he did. We do know that he had come to the apartment on previous occasions and taken the boy for as much as six hours.”

Le allegedly dropped off Ole near the home of Cecilia Guzman de Sainz, 30, in the working-class neighborhood of Colonia Obrera. Hoyle said he didn’t know why Ole was deposited there, except that Le might have seen other children nearby and “realized that the boy would be well taken care of.”

Ole apparently was. Guzman fed him lunch, then contacted Tijuana police, who took Ole to the abandoned children’s home.

Le told investigators that on Tuesday he returned to Tijuana and indicated to police there that he was looking for a missing boy. Le then left brochures describing Ole.

“It appears that as the situation grew, he became frightened,” Hoyle said. “We don’t know exactly why he went back to Tijuana with the brochures. We think maybe he did it because he wanted somebody to find the child and was trying to give them some clues.”

After allegedly confessing to San Diego police, Le returned to Tijuana on Wednesday night with detectives. They drove around for 90 minutes before finding Guzman, who told them that she had notified the authorities. The Tijuana State Judicial Police were then contacted and helped find Ole, Hoyle said.

By noon Thursday, Ole was at home and appeared unaffected--if not slightly confused--by all the attention he was receiving. His mother offered few words, but her joy over his presence was apparent.

“I’m happy again,” she said.