Family of Man Held in Kidnaping of Granddaughter Flees Apartment

The daughter and elderly parents of Leroy Freeman apparently have fled the Huntington Beach apartment where he was taken into custody Saturday along with the 13-year-old granddaughter he allegedly kidnaped 6 years ago.

Terry Shaffer, a manager of the Huntington West Apartments, said the Freemans left behind their furniture and a few possessions. “I would assume they’ve probably gone . . . to avoid all the problems,” property administrator Lisa Biondolillo said.

FBI agents Saturday arrested Freeman, 62, who has been charged in Lucas County, Ohio, with kidnaping his granddaughter, Charity, and fleeing prosecution. He led a dozen agencies on a cross-country chase for years. Three months ago, the pair moved in with Freeman’s parents, both in their 80s, and his daughter, Julie, 27, in Huntington Beach.

6 Years a ‘Nightmare’

In a news conference in Toledo, Ohio, Tuesday, Charity’s mother called the past 6 years a “nightmare” that she would prefer to forget.

“The way I feel right now, I don’t think any human being should have to go through what I’ve gone through and I don’t think anyone should have the right to do what he (Freeman) did to me,” Karen Creswell told reporters.

Julie Freeman, who goes by the name of Nicole Alden, has not returned to her machine-operator’s job at Henry’s Machine Works in Anaheim, co-workers said Tuesday. Earlier, Alden told The Times that she did not plan to return because of the publicity over her father’s arrest.

Office manager Joyce Lundberg said Alden had told her that she had moved in with friends and was doing baby-sitting chores for them. “She always seemed like a person who wanted to be a friend but was afraid,” Lundberg added.

Biondolillo called the Freeman’s apartment “uninhabitable” because of a pervasive odor that had brought complaints from neighbors. Leroy Freeman and Alden have claimed part of the problem was a cat litter box that needed to be cleaned.

Says Their Rent Is Paid

But Biondolillo denied another manager’s previous statements that Freeman’s relatives faced eviction. They paid rent on time and are paid through the end of the month, she said.

Meanwhile, other parts of the bizarre story were revealed Tuesday as Lucas County sheriff’s investigators made plans to extradite Freeman, who is being held at the Orange County Jail. An investigation continued into allegations against Freeman of satanism and Karen Creswell’s charge that her father abused Charity.

On Monday, Freeman telephoned the Toledo (Ohio) Blade, admitting that he took Charity but denying the other allegations. “I know that what I did was something out of necessity of the moment. I had no choice. I loved her, and I felt a responsibility for her,” Freeman said in a report published by the newspaper.

Had a ‘Close Bond’

Charity was the result of an unwanted, teen-age pregnancy, Freeman told the paper. He explained that he and Charity developed a “close bond” during the 7 1/2 years he cared for her while her mother “was trying to find her place in life.” When Creswell married in 1982 and wanted the child back, he said, “I took her. I told her we were going on a trip.”

On the plane that returned Charity from Orange County to Toledo, the girl recalled her grandfather telling her that he was taking her to see Mickey Mouse on that day 6 years ago, Lucas County Sheriff’s Detective Pam Crum said. Crum said Charity told her she thought they were going to a movie, but they ended up at Disney World in Florida. Charity told investigators that she had used the names Juanita and Susan, as well as two or three other aliases, during their nomadic years.

Charity appeared to be a “street-wise child” who was excited by the fugitive life and sought to protect her grandfather from the authorities she thought of as “mean.”

“She said, ‘You guys missed me every time,’ ” Crum related.

But Crum said, “When we asked her questions about her grandfather, she just really didn’t want to talk about it.”

Charity remains under observation in a Toledo hospital and was expected to be released Thursday. Crum said that Creswell was nervous at first about meeting her daughter, but they visit daily, she said, and now are “getting along great.”

Freeman told the Toledo newspaper he was pleased that Creswell was awarded custody of the child. “I think she’ll be a good mother,” he said. “I’d like to talk to her, but I don’t know if I ever will.”

Charity’s father, Chuck Hards of Neapolis, Ohio, has come forward recently to offer assistance. After Creswell became pregnant, she did not want to see him again, Hards told the Toledo Blade in published reports.

Now, “ ‘I just want to do what I can to help. Eventually, I’d like to meet her,’ ” the newspaper quoted him as saying, but “ ‘I don’t think right now would be the appropriate time to meet.’ ”