Capistrano Beach : Parents to Try to Catch Would-be Kidnaper

The parents and neighbors of an 8-year-old Capistrano Beach girl who fought off a would-be kidnaper by screaming, biting his hand and punching him in the nose, said Tuesday that they will launch a campaign to catch the man.

“People are pretty upset--they no longer think this neighborhood is above that kind of thing,” the girl’s mother, Jenny Celli, said.

Celli said she and her neighbors plan to put up posters with descriptions of the man who attacked Holly Celli as she walked home from Palisades Elementary School for lunch Monday.

The Sheriff’s Department has begun a search for a white male in his 30s, with white hair, about 5 feet, 5 inches tall and 180 pounds, Lt. Dick Olson said.

Holly Celli has told authorities that she fought off an attack by a man clad only in a pair of white shorts Monday after he tried to force her into a red sports car as she was walking to her house, which is near the school.

“First I bit him, then stomped on his foot and kicked him twice in the knees and punched him twice in the nose. Then he had a bloody nose, and I ran home,” Holly Celli said in an interview.

Olson said the credibility of the girl’s story was enough to warrant an investigation but would not discuss details.

The girl’s parents said they believe that Holly was able to escape because they had drilled her on how to respond if she was ever attacked by a stranger.

“What she did was the right thing sequence wise,” Gary Celli, a former karate instructor, said of his daughter. “She bit him, kicked him, punched him and screamed. She took this fellow by total surprise.”