2 Girls Safe; Suspect Sought in Drug Deal, Kidnap Twist

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said a kidnap victim became a kidnaper after drug buyers gave him and accomplices $150,000 for 12 boxes of Betty Crocker pudding mix.

Deputies are seeking Wallace Turner, 35, of Los Angeles in the kidnaping Friday of two girls--Amanda Engholm, 4, and her sister, Jana, 2, of Wildomar in Riverside County--from a Castaic service station.

Turner stole a van containing the two girls after escaping from his captors, said Lt. Ed Chenal of the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station. The girls were found unharmed an hour later in Pasadena, he said.

Two men have been arrested in the incident. Kimmet Haggins, 29, of Altadena is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail in the Santa Clarita station jail on suspicion of offering to sell material disguised as a controlled substance. Mathew Norman, 56, of Oakland is being held without bail on suspicion of attempted murder.

Met at Parking Lot

The incident began Friday afternoon when eight men met in a parking lot at La Cienega and La Tijera boulevards in Los Angeles to conduct a drug deal, Chenal said.

Turner, Haggins and two accomplices sold Norman and three other men the boxes of pudding mix, which were disguised with newspaper and tan tape, Chenal said. As soon as the $150,000 exchanged hands, Turner and Haggins’ accomplices left with the money, Chenal said.

Norman and the three other men then discovered the hoax and kidnaped Haggins and Turner at gunpoint, taking them in two rented cars--a blue van and a beige sedan, he said.

After traveling north on the Golden State Freeway, the cars stopped about 8:20 p.m. at a Unocal service station at Lake Hughes Road and the Old Road so the kidnap victims could make a phone call in an attempt to retrieve the money, he said. Haggins and Turner escaped while pretending to make the call, Chenal said.

Haggins ran into some bushes and Turner ran across the street to a Mobil station, Chenal said. At least one of the four kidnapers fired a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol at Turner, Chenal said.

Shot in Arm

James Robinson, 29, of Newport Beach, who was parked at the Mobil station where Turner fled, was shot in the left arm, Chenal said. Robinson was treated at Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia and released, he said.

Turner jumped into the silver van occupied by the Engholm girls and drove away as gas from bullet holes in the pumps spewed out, Chenal said. Pasadena police found the abandoned van with the girls inside about 10:45 p.m. near a restaurant on Walnut Street, he said. The girls were returned to their parents, he said.

The family could not be reached for comment Saturday.

Witnesses said the four men who kidnaped Turner and Haggins drove away from the Unocal station in two cars, Chenal said. Norman was arrested on the Golden State Freeway 25 miles north of the station when a sheriff’s deputy identified the blue van he was driving from a description broadcast by police. The suspects in the beige car have not been found.

Twelve packages of what appeared to be cocaine were found in the van, but when authorities later opened them, the pudding mix was discovered, Chenal said.

Haggins was arrested near the gas stations after police found him hiding in the bushes, Chenal said.