Hitchhiker Robs Man After Making Him Drive for Hours

A 26-year-old Westminster man was kidnaped and robbed Monday by a hitchhiker who forced him to drive from Buena Park to Valencia but never demanded ransom, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies said.

“This whole thing is real bizarre,” Sgt. Wallace Fullerton said. “The victim was trying to be a Good Samaritan.”

Thomas Wallace stopped at the Knott Avenue on-ramp of the southbound Riverside Freeway shortly before 10 a.m. Monday to pick up a hitchhiker who was standing by the freeway holding a briefcase, Fullerton said.

After getting into the car, the man pulled out a handgun and demanded that Wallace drive to Barstow, Fullerton said. For the next four hours Wallace was forced to drive “in different directions, on highways and surface streets,” Fullerton said.

Several times during the drive the gunman also ordered Wallace to call Wallace’s girlfriend and tell her he was being kidnaped, the deputy said. The gunman never demanded money of the woman nor did he speak with her directly, Fullerton said.

The ordeal ended when Wallace’s car overheated and stopped in Valencia. The kidnaper took $275 from Wallace and ran off in the direction of Valencia Boulevard and the Golden State Freeway.

Wallace was not injured.

The kidnaper was described as a white male, 28 to 30 years old, 175 pounds, 5 feet, 11 inches tall. He was wearing black pants and a white pin-striped shirt.