Kidnap Ordeal Ends in L.A. for Oregon Man, 77 : Abduction: Three teen-agers asked him for a lift. Police say they then robbed him and took him for a long ride.

They looked like nice, clean-cut kids, George Howard Russell would say later. So when they asked him for a lift, the 77-year-old man figured, why not?

Thus began a bizarre alleged kidnaping that started Tuesday afternoon in a King City, Ore., shopping center and ended early Friday in Los Angeles. Three Portland, Ore., teen-agers--a 17-year-old youth and two 14-year-old girls--were arrested after Russell managed to tell a nurse at White Memorial Hospital that he really wasn’t their grandfather, as one had claimed--he was their hostage.

Russell, physically unharmed in the ordeal, told authorities that he was forced at knifepoint on a journey that, financed by his credit cards, ventured to Phoenix, San Diego and Tijuana before circling back to Los Angeles.

It ended after one of the girls developed abdominal pains, prompting a visit to the emergency room. After hospital personnel at White Memorial refused to treat her without her parents’ consent, the girl said her grandfather was outside in the car.

“I don’t know anything about her,” Russell told nurse Eloy DeJesus, according to a police report. “I’m a kidnap victim!”

Los Angeles police arrested the three teen-agers and by noon Russell, whom a friend said normally leads “a very regimented” life, was on an airliner bound for Portland. Russell’s family and friends had grown worried about his whereabouts Wednesday and had reported him missing Thursday morning.

Capt. Pat Detloff of Oregon’s Clackamas County Sheriff’s Department said it is likely that the teen-agers will be returned to Oregon to face charges. They were being held in the meantime at a downtown Los Angeles juvenile hall. Officials said one option was to drop charges in California and return the three to Oregon, so that they can be charged and tried there.

The alleged kidnapers’ identities were not released because of their ages. Detloff described the two girls as “wards of the court” who had apparently run away from foster homes or a juvenile detention center.

Police were trying to determine the boy’s status. “He may be a ward of the court, too,” Detloff said.

The three teen-agers apparently are not related, and it was not clear how they met up with each other.

At least initially, however, the three posed as siblings in their encounter with Russell. According to police reports and an account that Russell provided to White Hospital officials, the abduction began about 2 p.m. Tuesday when the two girls approached Russell at a shopping center in King City, a small retirement community about 10 miles south of Portland. They asked him for a ride.

Moments later, they were joined by the boy, whom the girls identified as their brother.

“He said they looked clean-cut, so he decided to give them a ride,” said Mark Newmyer, a spokesman at White Memorial.

Police said the four then headed toward Wilsonville, Ore., a town of about 5,000. Then, Russell told hospital officials, the boy pulled a knife and began shouting at him. He was ordered into the back seat and the boy took the wheel.

They meandered around Wilsonville, apparently trying to disorient Russell, said Officer Sharyn Michelson, a Los Angeles police spokeswoman. She said that at one point they stopped the car and, after robbing Russell of $50, were preparing to let him go. But they abruptly changed plans, apparently figuring it would be useful to have Russell handy to sign for credit card purchases.

“They decided to keep him with them for purposes of credit card purchases for gas, food, et cetera,” Michelson said. “They told him if they were to get stopped, he would state that he’s their grandfather.”

They arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday and stopped at White Memorial Hospital about 11 p.m. Emergency room personnel told the girl they could not treat her without her parents’ consent.

The girl returned to the emergency room about 3:30 a.m. Friday, explaining that her grandfather was asleep outside in their car. Newmyer said nurse Eloy DeJesus, increasingly suspicious, then approached Russell.

When Russell told the nurse he had been kidnaped, “the kids told Eloy that their grandfather didn’t know what he’s talking about . . . that he’s like that sometimes,” Newmyer said.

When hospital staff members called police, it was confirmed that Russell had been reported missing in Oregon. Hospital security detained the teen-agers until police arrived.

On Friday morning, Russell’s son flew in from Oregon to meet his father, place him on a flight home and retrieve the car. In telephone interviews, Russell’s family and friends, waiting at his King City home, expressed relief.

“Oh, my heavens, yes, we’re relieved,” said a family friend, who requested anonymity. “George is a very regimented man and, for someone to deviate from a routine, we were very worried.”