Kidnap Suspect Says He Was in a Drug Haze
An ex-convict accused of kidnaping a 12-year-old Lodi girl says he was in a drug-induced haze and does not remember anything about the abduction.
In interviews with several media outlets Wednesday, Steven Reese Cochran, 25, said he was sorry about what happened and he wished he “could give the girls back their innocence.”
“I’m not admitting to anything,” Cochran told the Lodi News-Sentinel and KFBK radio in Sacramento. “I just don’t remember anything.”
Cochran allegedly abducted Katie Romanek from her home Saturday after tying up her sister and a friend and holding them at knifepoint for two hours. He was captured Sunday during a massive police hunt 25 miles southwest of Lodi, where Katie--nude, dazed and covered with mud--was found.
Cochran was arraigned Wednesday before a Lodi municipal judge but did not enter a plea.
More than half of the counts involve sex offenses and allegations that he assaulted, threatened and terrorized the kidnaping victim, her sister and a friend. Authorities have not said which of the three girls may have been sexually abused.
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