Jailed Woman Released as Kidnaping Inquiry Continues

Pasadena police have released a woman jailed in connection with the July 19 kidnapping of a 26-year-old Pasadena man.

Walella Mayson, 32, of Norwalk, was released Tuesday night, pending further investigation of the kidnaping of Robert Gray, son of the float chairman for the Rose Parade.

Another woman, Laura Melgar, 28, of Los Angeles, was released last week.

Police arrested the women after tracing calls made from their homes to the victim’s father, Lawrence Gray. Gray Jr.’s captors demanded $800,000 in ransom money but failed to pick it up.

Police now believe that the women did not participate in the actual kidnaping but had knowledge of the incident.

Investigators are looking to question two men: Mayson’s boyfriend and Melgar’s husband, an ex-employee of the Edmund A. Gray Co., a Los Angeles pipe manufacturing company where the victim worked as general manager.

Police wouldn’t release details but said the two men are both believed to be in Southern California.

Robert Gray was accosted at gunpoint just after 6 a.m. as he was leaving his Pasadena condominium to go to work. His abductors blindfolded and bound him, then drove him in his Toyota pickup to a spot where they switched to another vehicle.

Gray was found unharmed in an alley in South-Central Los Angeles about 16 hours later.