Woman, Daughter Are Kidnaped and Released by Man Who Flees

Orange County sheriff’s officers were searching for a man who kidnaped a mother and her daughter and molested the mother Friday before leaving them in Los Angeles County and fleeing in the victims’ car, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

The incident started when the 42-year-old woman, who was not identified, dropped off another child at school and returned to her home in the 12000 block of Old Foothill Boulevard in an unincorporated area near Santa Ana, according to Lt. Harold Fschaffroth.

Upon her return, the woman found her 12-year-old daughter tied up, and then she was tied up by a man armed with a handgun. The woman and her daughter were then put in the family’s 1987 Nissan, Fschaffroth said.

Fschaffroth said the man drove them to a house a few minutes away, took the woman inside and sexually molested her. The girl was left in the car unharmed.

The man dropped off the woman and daughter in Lawndale, in Los Angeles County, and fled in their car, he said.

The woman reported the incident to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Fschaffroth said the suspect is a Latino, about 20, 5 feet, 5 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes and was wearing a white shirt and white shoes, Fschaffroth said. The car’s license plate number is 2CTJ800.