Kidnapped Social Worker’s Bravery Hailed

A Los Angeles County social worker--first stabbed, then left bound and barefoot at a Wilmington oil refinery--managed to free herself and help police find the man suspected of kidnapping her and a 14-year-old foster child, authorities said Monday.

The resilience and bravery of social worker Lucie Whitcomb was credited by co-workers with the quick capture Saturday of the alleged kidnapper, Troy Lee Mendenhall.

Whitcomb’s relief at being free was tainted Monday by the knowledge that the teenage girl that she thought she was protecting is suspected by police of helping to arrange the abduction, county officials said.

“It’s dangerous enough out there,” Whitcomb said, “without being ambushed by a kid.”

A Los Angeles Police Department spokesman confirmed the children’s agency account of the incident and said that Mendenhall, 32, of San Pedro is being held on $500,000 bail on suspicion of kidnapping and carjacking. His 14-year-old alleged accomplice, whose name was not released, was being held on the same allegations at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall.

“When the police first mentioned to me that the girl was a suspect, I couldn’t believe it,” Whitcomb said in a telephone interview from her Santa Clarita home. “Then the kid was whining for me to come get her out of Juvenile Hall. I thought, “To hell with that!’ ”

Social workers said the incident demonstrates the danger of their jobs and the need for more detailed information on the calls to which they respond.

Whitcomb said she might have requested a police escort to the 14-year-old’s San Pedro foster home if she had known that the child had a history of psychiatric hospitalizations and assaults on others. “Something needs to improve, so when we go out on these calls we are not so blind,” Whitcomb said.

The incident began with a fairly routine call to the county Child Abuse Hotline. A foster mother said the teenager was acting aggressively--breaking household items and threatening a baby in the home.

The county Department of Children and Family Services sent Whitcomb, 43, to move the teenager to MacLaren Children’s Center. It was the sort of task that she had completed many times in her 14-year career.

But when she walked toward her car with the girl early Saturday morning, a hooded man surprised her, slamming something into her chest. It was seconds later that Whitcomb would see a knife, but not until she got home hours later that she realized that she had been stabbed. (The knife had been deflected by a rib and left only a shallow wound.)

Mendenhall allegedly ordered Whitcomb on a half-hour foray on Harbor area streets, a knife pressed to her side all the while, as the teenage girl rode in the back seat.

“I was rather frightened, but I had so much adrenaline going,” Whitcomb said. “I have always had a good ability to stay in control of things.”

The social worker felt that she had several opportunities to bolt from the car, but she declined to leave the girl, who she said was crying in the back seat.

The man in the hooded sweatshirt finally had Whitcomb stop past the container docks, beyond the railroad tracks in the isolated corner of what she believes was an oil refinery. He shredded a car cover and the woman’s sweater to fashion a gag and restraints and then took Whitcomb’s shoes, she said.

It took several minutes for Whitcomb to wrestle free and she had to run barefoot to notify workmen, she recalled. The girl remained in the car, Whitcomb said.

Not long afterward, LAPD units saw the suspect and began pursuing him on the Harbor Freeway, then surface streets, where he slammed into a utility pole. Mendenhall quickly told police that it was the teenager who had asked him to stage the abduction, officials said.

Apparently Mendenhall had been living near the teenager and had befriended her, authorities said. When she realized that she was going to be ousted from the home and sent elsewhere, the child apparently called the suspect for help, said Jeff Cekovich, a supervisor at the Emergency Response Command Post for the children and family services department.

Co-workers praised Whitcomb for keeping her cool.

“If anyone could have handled something like that, it would be Lucie,” said Paula Gamboa, another supervisor at the command post. “She has been in the field so long. She is seasoned. It might not have gone so well if it had been a younger, less experienced worker.”

Whitcomb said she is recovering nicely and hopes this summer to finish her licensing exam to become a psychologist. She said she would use her license to continue working with children--perhaps performing psychological evaluations at the county children’s shelter.