Kidnaped Clerk Still Missing After Holdup : Crime: Police lack suspects and motive in the Saturday morning abduction of Rigoberto Murillo.

A grocery clerk described as trusted and hard-working was still missing Sunday evening, more than 36 hours after he was kidnaped during a $60,000 robbery at the Van Nuys market where he worked.

Police said they had no suspects in the crime and no idea why the clerk was kidnaped during the early-morning robbery at Carneceria Vallarta Market, 13302 Victory Blvd.

“Recent developments are basically nil,” LAPD Sgt. Roy Sulton said.

Rigoberto Murillo, about 30, of Van Nuys was abducted at gunpoint after the market was robbed Saturday morning. The robber already had scooped up about $50,000 in cash and $10,000 in checks when he ordered Murillo into his car, store employees said.

According to police and witnesses, a male Latino, described as 24 or 25 years old, 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighing about 150 pounds, entered the small grocery store just after its 7 a.m. opening. He confronted Murillo and manager Cesar Gallo in a back office, brandished a small-caliber handgun, and ordered Gallo to open the safe.

He then bound Gallo, ordered Murillo into a white and burgundy Oldsmobile--possibly a two-door Cutlass--and fled south on Fulton Avenue.

Sulton said he did not know why the robber would abduct an employee after already gathering the cash.

But, he said, “at this point, we don’t have any indication that this was anything but a straight robbery.”

Meanwhile, the market reopened for business as usual Sunday, with a uniformed guard watching over shoppers pushing carts.

Co-workers and relatives of Murillo, who said they had received no messages from him since he was kidnaped, described him as a trusted employee with few personal problems.

“He was a nice guy, hard-working,” said Enrique Gonzalez, who owns the market and three others like it. “He worked for me six years.”

Though the store had been hit in the past by robbers, employees found this holdup unusual.

Patricia Gonzalez, who manages another of her father’s markets, said she couldn’t understand why Murillo was kidnaped.

“Why wasn’t the manager taken . . . instead of Rigo?” she said, using Murillo’s nickname.

She said the market was also robbed on Aug. 4, and that in both cases the robber seemed to know exactly where the money was located in the market.

“They knew where we keep it (the money),” she said. “Somehow they knew this time too.”

Police are still investigating the August robbery, she said, with the possibility that it was an inside job.