2 Masked Men Carjack Bentley, Kidnap Owner

A young businessman and father of two remained in critical condition Tuesday in the wake of an apparent follow-home robbery turned kidnapping that culminated in the fiery crash of the victim’s Bentley automobile.

Christopher Rawlings, 30, was ejected from the trunk of the luxury car as it struck a power pole on Tampa Avenue during a high-speed police pursuit Monday night, police said.

Rawlings’ kidnappers fled on foot and escaped a police perimeter, aided by a local blackout that resulted from a transformer disabled in the crash.

Both kidnappers were at large as of Tuesday evening.

Rawlings was unconscious and in critical condition with severe head injuries at Northridge Hospital Medical Center, where dozens of friends and family members gathered throughout the day and consoled his wife, Barbie. Family members were too distraught to speak to reporters.

On Monday, the night of his 30th birthday, Rawlings hopped in his Bentley and drove to a nearby grocery store to pick up diapers, baby formula and other items, according to police.

About a half hour later his wife heard the garage door open. When Rawlings didn’t come in after a minute or two, she went to investigate and found two masked men beating her husband in the garage, police said.

Barbie Rawlings shut the door leading from the garage to the house, rounded up the couple’s two young girls, and ran to the roof of the house. From there she called 911 on a cell phone.

As police arrived, the Bentley sped from the garage. Two officers came inside the house to investigate. Two others gave chase in their patrol car.

After a brief pursuit on the Ventura Freeway, the Bentley, driven by one of the kidnappers, exited at Tampa Avenue and headed north. The car then collided with a Chevrolet Cavalier and careened into a power pole. The driver of the Chevrolet suffered minor injuries.

“First you saw a flash of backwards lightning shooting up the pole. Then you saw the transformer just blow, shooting sparks all over the place,” said Tom Ropiak, who witnessed the crash.

The wreckage wound up in Eldy Cohen’s front yard.

“It’s crazy that it happens right in your front yard,” said the native Israeli who has spent the past 12 years in the United States. “That’s the sad part of living in L.A.”

Both kidnappers fled on foot into the darkness.

Police searched with K-9 units and helicopters into the early morning, but both men escaped. One apparently carjacked a Mazda on nearby Wilbur Avenue. The car was later recovered on the Foothill Freeway near Maclay Avenue.

Contrary to broadcast reports on television and radio, Rawlings is not an heir to the Rawlings sporting goods fortune. Officials at the publicly traded company based in St. Louis said they were unaware of any living Rawlings heirs.

A police source said the stir may have been caused by a tattoo Rawlings has of a baseball glove with the word Rawlings written across it.

Rawlings graduated from Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino, where he played football and ran track. In 1986, the year before he graduated, he helped lead the team to a divisional championship.

Bill Redell, Rawlings’ former coach at Crespi, said he ran into Rawlings at Christmastime and that Rawlings told him he was part owner of the Gentleman’s Quarters clothing store on Topanga Canyon Boulevard. The store was closed during business hours Tuesday. Other friends said they thought Rawlings worked as an investor.

Whatever his trade, he appeared successful. The Rawlings family live in a neighborhood of half-million dollar homes, and Bentleys, like the one he drives, start at more than $200,000.

“They’re just a really nice young couple,” said one neighbor, who asked not to be identified.

In Rawlings’ neighborhood, where Suburbans and BMWs were parked in driveways and several doors were answered by maids, neighbors said they were shocked by the kidnapping.

Judy Hoffman, who for 14 years has lived a block away in a house surrounded by a tall green fence, said: “We’re probably the most secure [house] in the neighborhood. But if someone wants to follow you, they will.”

“You just never would expect in this neighborhood that anything this horrible would happen,” said another neighbor two blocks down. “It’s kind of unsettling.”

The neighbor, who did not want his name used, also said Rawlings was very friendly and often took walks with his children. A neighbor said Rawlings’ mother told him the family was “stunned,” but handling it “real well.”

Several doors down, a neighbor who said he has known Chris Rawlings for two years called him “a good guy.”

At the hospital, several relatives congregated in the waiting room of the intensive-care unit. Among them were his sister, mother and wife, who appeared visibly upset. She kept her eye on a toddler who was playing nearby with a “Be My Valentine” balloon.

Despite grim reports from doctors, Rawlings’ sister seemed hopeful her brother would pull through.

She’s known him all his life, she told a loved one over the phone in a hospital waiting area, “and he always succeeds.”

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Staff writers Andrew Blankstein and Eric Sondheimer contributed to this story.