2 Arizona Boys’ Long Ride Ends Sleepily in Southland

An Arizona teen-ager decided to take his mother’s car out for a joy ride Saturday--a journey that ended Tuesday in Orange County, about 400 miles away.

A Fountain Valley patrolman discovered the 13-year-old and his 15-year-old companion sleeping in the car, a 1981 Mazda, at 2:42 a.m. Tuesday. The car was parked, engine running and parking lights on, in a shopping center parking lot at Magnolia Street and Warner Avenue--a long way from Mesa, Ariz., where the boys had started their trip.

They told police they had been on the road since Saturday morning. They said they first drove to San Diego, where they removed a California license plate from another car and put it on theirs, and then drove to Orange County.

The boys were resting in the shopping center parking lot when an officer noticed the running engine and the lights, said Fountain Valley Police Sgt. Larry Griswold.

Police traced the car to Arizona through the vehicle identification number. A further check revealed the car had been reported stolen from the driveway of the 13-year-old’s home in Mesa, a Phoenix suburb, Griswold said.

The mother told police in Arizona her son had taken her keys while she slept.

The youths, who would not say why they left home, were held on suspicion of vehicle theft and placed in the county’s Juvenile Hall in Orange. Officials there said the boys would be sent home, where it will be up to Arizona authorities whether to prosecute them.

The stolen license plate was being returned to its owner.