Man Sought in Abduction Linked to Bogus Drug Deal

Authorities on Saturday were seeking a Los Angeles man who they say stole a van containing two young girls from a Castaic gas station in a move to escape armed drug buyers.

Wallace Turner, 35, allegedly kidnaped Amanda Engholm, 4, and her sister, Jana, 2, of Wildomar, Friday after the drug buyers discovered they had been swindled, said Lt. Ed Chenal of the Santa Clarita sheriff’s station.

Turner and his accomplices themselves had been kidnaped by drug buyers who paid them $150,000 for what turned out to be 12 boxes of Betty Crocker pudding mix, Chenal said.

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.

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, disguised with newspaper wrapping and tan tape, saying it was cocaine, Chenal said.

Norman and the three other drug buyers then discovered the hoax and kidnaped Haggins and Turner at gunpoint, taking them in two rented cars--a blue van and a beige sedan--on the northbound Golden State Freeway, Chenal said.

The cars stopped about 8:20 p.m. at a Unocal service station in Castaic at Lake Hughes Road and the Old Road to allow the kidnap victims to make a phone call in an attempt to retrieve the money, he said. Haggins and Turner escaped from their captors while pretending to make the phone 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 alleged kidnapers fired a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol at Turner, Chenal said.

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 two Engholm girls and drove away as gasoline spewed from bullet holes in the pumps, Chenal said. Pasadena police found the abandoned van with the two girls in it about 10:45 p.m. near Beckham Place Restaurant on Walnut Street in Pasadena, he said. The two girls were returned to their parents, he said. The family could not be reached for comment Saturday.

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

Witnesses said the four men who kidnaped Turner and Haggins drove away from the Unocal service station in two cars, Chenal said. Norman was arrested 25 miles north of the station on the Golden State Freeway when a sheriff’s deputy identified the blue van he was driving from a description broadcast over the police radio.

Twelve packages of what appeared to be cocaine were found inside the van. But when authorities opened the packages at the Santa Clarita station, the pudding mix was discovered, Chenal said.