Suspect Held in Kidnaping of Girl, Rape of Her Mother

A 7-year-old girl who was allegedly kidnaped at Port Hueneme after being tied up while her mother was sexually assaulted was rescued Friday by police in Las Vegas and the man suspected of abducting her was arrested.

Justo Dungca, 34, was arrested by Las Vegas police on suspicion of attempted murder, felony child endangerment and first-degree kidnaping with injuries.

The arrest and rescue came almost 24 hours after the child and her mother were attacked, held captive for hours in a Port Hueneme house where Dungca and the woman both rented rooms, and then taken on a nightmarish ride through Southern California, police said.

The woman managed to escape in Anaheim late Thursday and notify police.

“We’re all relieved,” said Chief Bob Anderson of the Port Hueneme Police Department. “We had been worried to death.”

Police said that shortly before noon Thursday, the little girl’s mother received a call at work from her daughter, saying she was sick.

The 27-year-old woman said she returned to the house where she rents a room in the 600 block of Bard Road and saw her daughter sitting on a couch crying .

The suspect was waiting for the woman, Anderson said. As the mother approached her daughter, he grabbed the woman and took the two of them into a bedroom, where he bound and gagged them, Anderson said.

The daughter was forced to remain in the room while the suspect sexually assaulted and beat the mother, Anderson said.

Sometime later that afternoon, the man forced the woman and her daughter into the woman’s car and began driving to Anaheim, where the suspect said he wanted to visit an ex-girlfriend, he said.

When they arrived in Anaheim about 9 p.m., the woman asked the suspect to pull over to a gas station “on the pretext that she had to use the restroom,” Anaheim Police Sgt. Chet Barry said.

“She went into the restroom and came back to the car and tried to grab her daughter out of the vehicle, but the suspect drove away with the girl before she got her out,” Barry said.

After the suspect fled, the woman called police from a pay phone. Anaheim officers notified Port Hueneme police, who broadcast a description of the stolen car, suspect and victim, Anderson said.

But nothing was heard until 11 a.m. Friday, when the suspect, who had no money, appeared at a Las Vegas car dealership trying to sell or trade the woman’s car. He was arrested after a struggle, said Lt. Greg Jolley of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

The little girl was taken to University Medical Center there, where she was treated for “bumps on the head,” Jolley said.

Chief Anderson said he did not know whether the child was sexually abused.

The child’s parents flew to Las Vegas with detectives on Friday afternoon to pick up their daughter.

Anderson said the department plans to charge Dungca on several counts, including assault, sexual assault, false imprisonment and kidnaping.

Times staff writer Matt Lait in Orange County contributed to this report.