Woman, 23, Safe After Kidnaping

A UCLA cellist was released early Monday after an 18-hour ordeal in which two men kidnaped her from the El Camino College campus in Gardena on Sunday afternoon and held her captive in her own car while they drove the vehicle from the South Bay to the San Fernando Valley and Malibu, sheriff’s deputies said.

Lynne Marie Carlucci, 23, was set free at 5:45 a.m. near Yukon Avenue and Redondo Beach Boulevard, next to Alondra Park, according to Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Detectives, who spent Monday interviewing her to sort out the details of what happened during the night, said she showed no outward signs of physical harm.

About a dozen deputies spent the night looking for her as her parents kept vigil at the El Camino campus police station.

“It was a bad night with a happy ending,” said a relieved Don Carlucci, Lynne’s father, Monday afternoon.

Police were searching for two abductors--described as Latino men, each 5-foot-8 and 140 pounds, between 20 and 25, one clad in a blue jacket. The men took turns sleeping while Carlucci stayed awake all night.

Authorities also were investigating the possibility that the abduction might be related to a similar incident that occurred in October, said Sgt. Kraig Petersen, who is supervising the investigation for the sheriff’s department.

Petersen would not discuss details of the October incident, except to say that it involved a woman who was abducted from the same parking lot as Carlucci.

Carlucci, a UCLA student from Torrance who plays cello in the El Camino College Symphony, was abducted from the college parking lot at the corner of Crenshaw Boulevard and Redondo Beach Boulevard as she was leaving a rehearsal about 1:20 p.m. Sunday.

According to Petersen, Carlucci was about to put her cello in the trunk of her car when she was approached by two men, one of whom held a knife to her and forced her into her car.

With Carlucci in the passenger seat, the pair drove throughout the night, all the while telling Carlucci they would not harm her, Petersen said. The pair made several brief stops, once to purchase beer and once when they forced Carlucci to cash a $50 check, he added.

Petersen said that on several occasions the two men ordered Carlucci to take sips of beer, and that one of them struck her in the head when she uttered the words “el stupido.”

Finally, they let her go about 5:45 a.m., not far from where she had been abducted. “They got out of the car and told her just to drive forward, don’t look back,” Petersen said. “They got out. She drove on and they walked off.”

Carlucci then drove to her boyfriend’s home in Redondo Beach and he called sheriff’s deputies.