Boy, 3, Kidnap Victim, Is Found : Crime: Youngster is reported in good health in Ventura. Police arrest a man and a woman.

Three-year-old Milan DePillars--whose mother made dramatic appeals for his safe return--was found safe in Ventura on Monday night, and his mother was en route to be reunited with him, Los Angeles police said.

The boy was found at 9 p.m. at the Ventura Beach Motel by Ventura Police Department detectives, and a man and woman were arrested in connection with his kidnaping, said Lt. Ron Lewis of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Authorities said the boy was in good health and that they were taking his mother to Ventura for the reunion.

Elias Hernandez, 30 of Ventura and Patricia Landers, 20 of Los Angeles were arrested, police said.

“Oh yes, I am ecstatic,” the boy’s grandmother, Bessie DePillars said in a telephone interview after the boy was found. “You can’t believe what we have gone through.”

Lewis said police were continuing to investigate whether the boy was taken in retaliation for the testimony of his mother against a former boyfriend now in jail.

Monday night’s development occurred as police struggled to figure out why the boy was taken.

Detectives have not ruled out the possibility that Lawrence F. Floyd, 27, a former boyfriend of the toddler’s mother, orchestrated the abduction as a pay-back for her testifying against him in court last year. Police were backing off the theory that Floyd was a “well-known and respected” member of the Rollings 60s street gang and that his colleagues targeted the child as retaliation.

At a news conference held early Monday before the boy was found, Lewis said that Floyd--who sometimes went by the alias Johnny Key--appeared to be “more of an associate member than an actual member” of the Rolling 60s.

However, Lewis said, even this is unclear because one suspect in the kidnaping is Latino, and the Rolling 60s gang is predominantly black. Detectives had released a composite sketch of the suspect.

The pay-back theory received attention when it was learned that the boy’s mother testified against Floyd in court.

Floyd, distraught over their failed relationship, had stalked her, three times kidnaped her at gunpoint, beaten her and raped her in a South-Central Los Angeles motel room, according to her testimony.

While Milan’s mother was being held captive for the final time, Floyd--out on bail for the first attack--allegedly drove her to a gas station at Western and Slauson avenues, where he pointed her out to a friend who worked there.

“He said: ‘See this bitch right here? She’s the one that put me in jail the first time,’ ” the woman testified. “He said: ‘If anything happens to me, go shoot up her mother’s house.’ ”

Asked how she responded, Milan’s mother said: “I just started crying and I said: ‘Oh, my God, my mother, my baby.’ ”

Floyd pleaded no contest to rape and kidnaping charges, and, as part of a plea-bargain arrangement, will be sentenced Thursday to 18 years in prison, Los Angeles County district attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said.

When Milan was snatched Friday night from the front porch of his family’s Hyde Park duplex, his mother assumed that it was retribution for her testimony, Los Angeles police said. For lack of another explanation, detectives also decided to pursue that theory.

Floyd, who is in custody at Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho near Castaic, was arrested in 1983 for an armed robbery. He was sentenced to a five-year prison term and was released in May, 1989.

In early 1990, he struck up a romantic relationship with Milan’s mother that lasted about eight months, according to court records. By late summer of that year, she had decided “it was to the point where I wanted to end the relationship.”

But Floyd, apparently obsessed with the woman, continued to stalk her, court records show. On July 22, 1990, Floyd allegedly broke into her home while she was away. When she came in, he accused her of infidelity, ripped a necklace off her neck, flushed it down the toilet and punched her in the eye and jaw, prosecutors said.

A week later, Floyd allegedly followed her in his car, forced his way into her car at gunpoint and drove her to a Century Boulevard motel. After discussing their failed relationship for about 20 minutes, he released her, records show.

After that incident, he was arrested and charged with kidnaping. In November, 1990, he posted $40,000 bail and was released pending his trial.

Contributing to this story was Times staff writer Nieson Himmel.