Woman Held Hostage by Intruder

A Rossmoor woman was bound to a chair with black electrical tape for more than three hours Friday, police said, while an intruder ordered her husband to put $5,000 in a white paper bag from a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant, then stash the money in some bushes nearby.

Myrna Peterjohn, 63, was not harmed. She freed herself about 12:45 p.m., the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said. The former teacher, still clad in her pajamas, then left her home on Foster Road in Rossmoor, an unincorporated area adjacent to Los Alamitos.

“She just cut herself loose,” said Jim Amormino, director of public affairs at the Sheriff’s Department. “The victim was held at her house. He left her taped to the chair.”

Peterjohn’s ordeal began nearly four hours earlier, authorities said, when she came downstairs and encountered an intruder wearing black gloves, a black mask and a baseball cap near her front door.

He tied her up and told her he had spent the night in her house waiting for her husband to leave for work.

“This appeared to be pretty well planned,” Amormino said.

Investigators gave this account of the incident:

Robert Peterjohn, 71, left the house about 7:30 a.m. About 9:30 a.m. he got a call at his Buena Park business, Aerofit Products, supposedly from his wife. But the voice on the other end of the line was that of a young man, not Myrna Peterjohn.

The unidentified man told Peterjohn that he was holding Peterjohn’s wife hostage.

The man told Peterjohn to follow his instructions and not to call police.

Peterjohn was supposed to get $5,000, then go through the drive-through of a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant on Los Alamitos Boulevard, order some food and replace the food in the bag with the money.

He was supposed to leave the bag full of cash in an undisclosed “grassy area,” then drive to an adjacent Texaco station and buy some gas.

The caller allowed Robert Peterjohn to speak with his wife, who told him that the attack was real and that he should obey the man’s orders.

Peterjohn also was told that he was being watched by an accomplice.

He then called his son, but it was unclear late Friday who notified authorities. The information was delayed getting to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department because the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department was contacted first.

Orange County got the call at 10:40 a.m., Sheriff’s Lt. Rich Paddock said.

A sheriff’s SWAT team surrounded the house, unsure whether the intruder and hostage were still inside.

At 12:45 p.m. Myrna Peterjohn walked out of the house unharmed.

By that time, Amormino said, someone already had collected the ransom.

“The money was picked up by someone, we don’t know who,” he said.

Employees at the Texaco station and the Jack-in-the-Box said they did not notice anything unusual Friday morning.

Myrna and Robert Peterjohn declined to comment on the ordeal.

After she was checked by paramedics, Myrna Peterjohn retreated to her neighbor’s home.

The neighbor, Gloria Walker, also declined to discuss the incident, saying only, “She’s not hurt; she’s all right.”