Police Fear Girl Was Abducted : Search: Officials first suspected that 5-year-old had wandered Wednesday from the Fox Hills Mall. Now they suspect foul play.

After searching round-the-clock for four days, Culver City police said Sunday they suspect foul play in the disappearance of 5-year-old Marquisha Shanee Candler from the Fox Hills Mall.

“We’re satisfied she’s not wandering around,” said Sgt. Hank Davies, the supervisor of detectives heading the investigation. “We are now looking at it as a kidnaping, an abduction.”

Authorities first suspected that the girl, who lives in Ontario, had gotten lost in the mall during a shopping trip with relatives Wednesday afternoon. But searches of the vast shopping complex and surrounding areas were unsuccessful.

After Culver City police circulated photos of the child, who is black, with dark sandy hair and a missing right tooth, they have been flooded with calls--some from concerned citizens and at least one from an apparent prankster.

At 1 a.m. Sunday, police searched the home of a Santa Monica man after an anonymous caller said he was harboring the child. Police suspect that the caller was trying to antagonize the Santa Monica man, who has been cleared of any involvement.

Other calls have been more promising. One passenger got off a bus in Hollywood on Saturday to report that she had seen a woman sitting with a young girl who looked like Marquisha. By the time Los Angeles police boarded the westbound bus on Sunset Boulevard, the woman and child were gone and searches around nearby bus stops failed to turn up any leads, said Davies and Officer Steve Yoshida.

After making several trips to San Bernardino County, and checking out tips on the Westside, in South-Central Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley over the weekend, police are without clues.

The girl was last seen about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday playing in the women’s wear section of a May Co. store at the Culver City mall. She had arrived just minutes before with an aunt, three sisters, a brother and her grandmother, Bertha Toombs--who has custody of the children.

The group had traveled to Los Angeles to visit a relative and decided to go shopping on the way home. But as they were distracted momentarily by a bird flying inside the mall, Davies said, Marquisha vanished.

“We don’t think somebody walked up and snatched her,” he said. “We think she wandered off.”

Davies said police have eliminated all family members as suspects.

The girl is 3 feet, 6 inches tall and weighs about 40 pounds, and was last seen wearing a light-blue blouse, dark-blue pants and white tennis shoes.

“And she has a habit of picking at her hair and rubbing her fingers together,” Davies said.