Co-Worker Held : Missing Girl, 16, Turns Up in Montana Town

A 16-year-old honor student, who police feared had been kidnaped more than a week ago by a 30-year-old movie theater doorman, was found unharmed Monday in a small Montana town, where she told authorities that she accompanied the man voluntarily, Los Angeles police detectives reported.

Michelle Ann Zaslavsky, a Calabasas High School student, and Thomas Allen Chapman of Canoga Park were last seen Aug. 14 leaving the Woodland Hills Cinema, where they both worked, said Detective Ed Pikor. Police launched a search for them, saying it was suspected that Chapman, a married father of two, had kidnaped her.

Sheriff’s Department deputies found Chapman’s 1974 Oldsmobile parked outside a small restaurant in Deer Lodge, Mont., on Monday and apprehended Zaslavsky and Chapman when they emerged, Pikor said.

Pikor said that when he tried to interview the girl over the phone, she broke into tears, and told him: “I wanted to go with him, and I don’t want to answer all of your questions.”

Chapman was arrested on suspicion of child stealing and is being held in Powell County Jail in Montana, Pikor said. Zaslavsky was to be released to the custody of her parents, who flew to Montana on Monday evening, he said.

Chapman and Zaslavsky became friends soon after the girl began working at the theater about five months ago, co-workers told police. Zaslavsky told friends that her resistance to Chapman’s overtures upset him.

Pikor later learned that Chapman and Zaslavsky, a straight-A student and member of the basketball and swimming teams, had a romantic relationship.

“The only thing she would tell me over the phone was that she had ended the relationship a few weeks ago, but she guessed it never was really ended,” Pikor said.

Pikor said he has not completely discounted the possibility that Zaslavsky may have been kidnaped, but he has no reason to disbelieve her account.

“It would have been much easier for everybody if we had known she had just run away with someone, if we knew she wasn’t in any danger,” he said.