Missing Girl From Fullerton Is Found Safe

A daylong search for an 8-year-old girl reported kidnaped from her mother’s bed Friday ended when the girl was found near midnight at a motel in Anaheim and her mother’s boyfriend was arrested on suspicion of abduction.

The boyfriend, Robert Granger, 34, who lives with the child and her mother, had told police that the girl disappeared when he checked on her in her mother’s bedroom at 11:30 a.m.

Police and bloodhounds searched the neighborhood all day and all night, but said later that Granger’s story had been inconsistent. She eventually telephoned police from the Silver Moon Motel after she saw herself on television, police said. She had been tied up but managed to free herself, police said.

Her apparent abduction was the second such incident in Orange County in a month. On June 30, a 7-year-old girl was carried out of her bed in Tustin, but that kidnaping was foiled when family members chased the abductor and forced him to release her. He was later arrested.

The Fullerton girl had been reported last seen about 10 a.m. in her mother’s bedroom, wearing a green bathrobe and white T-shirt and underwear.

Her mother, Lori Amaro, 29, had been driven to work in Los Angeles on Friday morning by Granger, police said. When Granger returned to the apartment he shares with Amaro about 10 a.m., he noticed the child asleep, he told police.

Granger and the girl and her 10-year-old brother were in and out of the two-bedroom apartment for the next hour and a half, Granger said. When Granger checked the bedroom again about 11:30 a.m., he saw that she was missing and found signs of a break-in, Granger told police.

After searching in vain for the child, Granger said he called the mother about 1:30 p.m., and she came home. About 2:30 p.m. they called police, Palmer said.

“They also noticed there appeared to be some valuables missing--jewelry, a handgun and one of those little portable fire safes, more like a locked box,” Fullerton Police Lt. Tony Hernandez said earlier Friday.

Amaro said police told them that although the bedroom screen was cut, the dust on the window sill was undisturbed, perhaps indicating that it was not really the point of entry.

“The window was made to look like it was broken through,” she said.

Amaro, who is expecting another baby in two weeks, said earlier Friday night, “I am not going into labor; I’m going to stay calm because someone may come up with my daughter.”

The girl’s father said he learned of the abduction when his former wife called him about 3 p.m.

“It’s something you see on TV; it doesn’t happen to you,” said Gary Amaro, 38, a drapery installer who lives in Long Beach. “I don’t know how to feel. Angry, I guess, that someone would have the audacity to go into your house and take your kid.”

Amaro, who has been divorced from the girl’s mother for about six years, said his daughter is “like every 8-year-old. Every weekend she wants to go to Disneyland.

“I sat down in my house and just prayed,” he said Friday evening. “It’s out of my hands. It’s in God’s hands. I would like to do something but I can’t.”

About 20 police officers using five bloodhounds searched the neighborhood surrounding the 88-unit apartment complex, located in the 2400 block of West Orangethorpe Avenue.

Police said it appeared that someone came in through the window of the mother’s bedroom, which opens onto an alley.

“To my knowledge, none of the neighbors noticed anything unusual,” Palmer said.

Neighbors were stunned at the news.

“It could have happened to anyone, but it happened to her,” said Luis Felix, 13, who also lives in the complex and has played POGs with the girl.

Young Felix said that shortly after noon he saw the bedroom where the girl had slept and it was in disarray with items strewn on the floor.

Barbara Rawlings, manager of Regency Villas, said she first heard about the kidnaping when Granger asked her if she had seen his “baby.” He said he had been doing laundry across the street and had noticed the girl missing when he returned. He also discovered the bedroom window screen cut, she said.

“I personally don’t believe that (she) would run away with someone she didn’t know,” Rawlings said.

Rawlings, who spoke with the girl’s mother throughout the day, said she’s “holding up under the circumstances.”

Times correspondent Martin Miller contributed to this story