Curler Was Weapon in Cab Hijacking

A belligerent woman who hijacked a Palm Springs taxicab--and paralyzed rush-hour freeway traffic near San Bernardino while holding the driver hostage for 5 1/2 hours--was armed only with a chrome-barreled curling iron, authorities said Wednesday.

The woman, identified by Rialto police as Elizabeth Bellus, 46, of Cathedral City, was captured after police shot tear gas into the taxi about 11 p.m. Tuesday--an hour after the cabdriver jumped from the vehicle and scurried to safety.

The incident began when George Istrate picked up the woman as a fare at a Palm Springs hotel and evolved into a pursuit along Interstate 10 after Istrate--speaking in his native Romanian--radioed another cabdriver that his passenger was holding a gun to his head.

That driver alerted the cab company owner by cellular phone and the owner--jumping into his own cab to give chase--called the California Highway Patrol, according to CHP Officer Oscar Medellin.

With CHP officers in pursuit at normal freeway speeds, Istrate’s cab ran out of gas and stopped in the westbound lanes of the freeway in Rialto, forcing the closure of a 15-mile stretch of the San Bernardino Freeway between Interstate 15 and Interstate 215 at the peak of the evening commute.

Rialto Police Capt. Timm Browne said Bellus demanded to speak to Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, saying she was angry that his office was not helping to locate her missing mother.

But the woman’s mother, Browne said, was safe at her home in Cathedral City--and unable to explain her daughter’s actions.

On Sunday, Bellus had told Cathedral City police that she felt her life was in danger. Later, her family told police that Bellus had been acting irrationally, Cathedral City Police Lt. Greg Savelli said.

Browne characterized Bellus as “hostile, uncooperative, unresponsive and highly agitated.”

She was taken to San Bernardino County Medical Center for psychiatric observation before being transferred Wednesday to a jail in Rancho Cucamonga, under arrest on suspicion of kidnapping. The case will be transferred to Riverside County prosecutors because the incident began in Palm Springs, Browne said.

“She doesn’t know how close she came to death’s door over a curling iron,” he said.

Browne said Bellus had little use for hostage negotiators, refusing to speak to them by telephone and talking at conversational volume through a window, even as loud trains passed beside the freeway and helicopters flew noisily overhead.

As the CHP worked furiously to get trapped motorists off the freeway--a gargantuan task that lasted about an hour--Rialto police moved a squad car close to the cab for protection as they tried to negotiate with the woman face to face.

Istrate, behind the wheel and apparently believing that a gun was trained on him, nervously smoked cigarettes. As the night progressed, officers positioned themselves to be seen only by Istrate, and used hand signals to encourage him to try to make a run for safety, Browne said.

About 10 p.m., Istrate darted from his vehicle and officers fired a “flash-bang” grenade to distract Bellus. The woman moved to the front seat and closed the doors and windows of the cab.

An hour later, a Rialto SWAT officer approached to within a few feet of the cab and fired a tear gas canister through a back window. The woman opened the door, walked briskly away and was apprehended.

Istrate was treated at a nearby hospital for chest pains and released. The Cathedral City resident, who is married and has two children, took Wednesday off to recover and, through friends, declined comment.

His co-workers said Istrate--gregarious and street-savvy--seemed to feel something was amiss from the moment he picked up the woman. When his dispatcher asked where he was taking the fare, Istrate said the woman offered no specific destination, according to cabdriver Daniel Constantinescu, who monitored the radio conversation.

At one point, Bellus commandeered the cab radio, barking at the dispatcher, “I’ll tell him where to drop me off,” Constantinescu said. When the dispatcher asked Istrate if he was all right, there was silence, Constantinescu said.

Worried, the dispatcher used a cellular phone--so he would not be overheard by Bellus--and asked Constantinescu to radio Istrate in their native language.

“I asked him, ‘Is everything OK?’ And he said, ‘No, nothing’s OK. She’s got a gun to my head.’ ”

When Istrate’s cab ran out of gas in Rialto, the CHP quickly closed down the freeway--affecting homebound traffic for more than 10 miles in each direction and flooding nearby streets and the Pomona Freeway with overflow traffic.

“One of our drivers had his nine-hour day turn into a 13-hour day,” said Pete Bondy, a dispatcher with USF Bestway, a Fontana trucking company. “And guys coming in from the desert were delayed two hours.”

Omnitrans, the public transit agency for the San Bernardino Valley, said one of its freeway bus routes ran more than two hours late--forcing the cancellation of a later run. Surface street lines also ran late, a spokeswoman said.

Times staff writer Tom Gorman reported from Riverside; correspondent Diana Marcum reported from Cathedral City.