O.C. Kidnap Suspect Not Linked to Other Crimes

A 48-year-old ex-convict suspected of kidnaping a homeless girl in Santa Ana probably is not the man wanted in at least 10 kidnaping attempts in Los Angeles County, police said Tuesday.

Police in Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach and Pico Rivera said they showed a photograph of Eduardo Uzcanga to six child victims on Tuesday, but none was able to identify him.

“I’ve pretty much eliminated him from consideration,” said Manhattan Beach Police Sgt. John Zea, who showed Uzcanga’s mug shot to two of the three child victims in that city. “They were not able to ID him. They didn’t even show any reaction at all.”

“We’re back where we started from,” said Pico Rivera Detective Cheryl Comstock.

Police had considered Uzcanga an unlikely but possible suspect because his profile was in some respects similar to that of the Los Angeles County abductor, who was described as a dark-haired white or Latino man with a mustache who drove up to girls in a dark blue pickup.

Details of the car and of the man’s approach to his victims were somewhat different, however, Zea said.

The Santa Ana victim’s mother told police she saw a Latino man in a blue pickup grab her daughter as the mother was trying to reach the shelter of a Salvation Army Center with two other children in tow.

The child was found wandering in the area of the abduction about two hours after it occurred at 6:30 p.m. Sunday at 3rd Street and Lacy Avenue.

Police later spotted a truck matching that description in Santa Ana, and arrested Uzcanga, a transient, who was in the truck.

The child appeared to be unhurt but detectives requested a medical examination to determine whether she had been sexually assaulted.

The results of those tests, conducted at UCI Medical Center in Orange, proved inconclusive, Santa Ana police spokeswoman Maureen Thomas said Tuesday.

“They did not prove or disprove any sexual molestation, so basically our charge will be kidnaping and parole violation,” she said.

Uzcanga was paroled in December, 1988, after serving a sentence for attempted murder. He was being held at Orange County Jail and is expected to be arraigned on one count of kidnaping today, officials said.

Santa Ana police also gave Uzcanga’s photograph to police in Hawthorne, where a similar attempted abduction was reported, but a Hawthorne detective said he had not yet shown the photograph to that victim.

All of the Los Angeles County victims were able to run away and call for help. The children, ages 7 and 12, were approached by the man while playing or walking home from school during the last two weeks of September.