Couple Accused of Faking Kidnapping

Fearing the worst, a Pasadena mother frantically called police after her 23-year-old daughter contacted her saying she had been kidnapped and her abductor wanted $5,000 ransom to return her alive.

Pasadena police caught the suspects early Tuesday morning in Los Angeles. But the daughter, Christina Phillips, didn’t walk free.

That’s because Phillips and boyfriend Christopher Watts were the suspects. They were booked for conspiracy to commit extortion.

“There wasn’t any kidnapping. It was staged,” said Pasadena Police Sgt. Tom Pederson.

Pederson said the mother called Pasadena police at 10:30 p.m. Monday to report her daughter’s kidnapping and the ransom demand.

“Her daughter told her, ‘They are going to kill me if you don’t pay up,’ ” Pederson said.

A man claiming to be the kidnapper, whom police believe was Watts, repeated the demands to the mother during several phone calls.

The calls didn’t come from a pay phone, police said. The alleged location: Watts’ residence at 84th Street and Normandie Avenue in Los Angeles. “I guess they figured her mother didn’t have caller ID,” Pederson said. They were right, she didn’t. But police traced the calls.

Los Angeles police staked out Watts’ residence and saw him and Phillips get into his car about 1 a.m. Tuesday, said Los Angeles Police Lt. Paul Von Lutzow.

Officers pulled the pair over nearby and took them into custody. Police say they did not interact like the typical kidnapper and his victim.

During the last year Watts, 30, has been arrested on suspicion of driving without a license and possession of marijuana for sale.

Watts and Phillips, a Monrovia resident, are being held on $35,000 bail at the Pasadena jail pending a court appearance that could come today.

“Apparently they thought this caper was going to work. That’s why we catch most criminals,” Pederson said. “Truth is, alas, stranger than fiction.”