Elderly Man Vanishes With ‘Buyer’ of Trailer

An elderly Tustin man was kidnaped in his car Sunday by a man bent on escaping a police dragnet who posed as a prospective buyer of the victim’s trailer, police said.

Despite a warning by his wife not to do so, Frank M. Holliday, 89, accompanied a stranger who had knocked on his door and asked for a ride after promising to buy a trailer Holliday had for sale on his front lawn, according to Tustin Detective Mark Bergquist, .

The alleged abductor, Clarence Leon Dews, 29, on parole for a similar car theft and kidnaping in Fresno in 1982, lived only a block from the Holliday residence in south Tustin, Bergquist said.

Dews is described as black, 5 feet, 11 inches tall, weighing 150 pounds. He was last seen wearing a white-and-tan-striped short-sleeved shirt and jeans.

Holliday is white, about 5 feet, 11 inches tall and weighing about 150 pounds. He has gray hair.

Bergquist said police were called by Dews’ wife, Yasmin Davis, 29, about 10 a.m. Sunday after the woman and Dews got into a violent family argument. However, when police arrived at the home in the 1200 block of Sycamore Avenue, Dews had fled on foot.

Patrol officers aided by a police dog and helicopter searched the neighborhood. While police were still in the area, Dews returned to his residence about 1 p.m., only to elude officers again, Bergquist said.

The search went on for several hours before Holliday’s wife, frightened and upset, called police and notified them that her husband was missing, Bergquist said.

“Apparently the suspect had been going door-to-door and asking people for help,” Bergquist said. “When he got to the Holliday home he noticed that the victim had a trailer on the front lawn with a for sale sign.”

Bergquist said the suspect knocked on the door and then told Holliday, “I want to buy your trailer but I don’t have a car. Can you drive me to a bank?”

The story apparently duped the victim, Bergquist said.

“His wife warned him, ‘I don’t think you should go with him.’ But he went anyway,” Bergquist said.

Dews is also known as Leon Clarence Dews III, Bergquist said. A parolee with an extensive car theft record, Dews has a relatively nonviolent criminal past, a factor that had led police to express hope late Sunday that Holliday may be released unharmed.

In the Fresno car theft and kidnap three years ago, Bergquist said, Dews released the victim unharmed. Police also believe that Dews may be headed for the Fresno area that he has frequented in the past.

“We’re hoping that he will leave the victim somewhere safe, say at a freeway rest area or something like that,” Bergquist said.

Police believe Dews is unarmed, Bergquist said.

Police said Holliday’s car is a tan and brown 1978 Buick Century station wagon, with California license number 923 VQB.

Police issued an advisory with a description of the suspect, victim, and victim’s car, to law enforcement agencies in Southern California and the Bakersfield-Fresno area.