Pregnant Woman Tells of 36-Hour Kidnaping Ordeal

A 25-year-old pregnant woman, who allegedly was abducted and held for ransom for 36 hours until police rescued her from a Sun Valley body shop, said Thursday that the kidnapers may have been seeking compensation for drugs or money stolen by a friend of her brother.

Eight people were arrested.

Although Los Angeles police detectives declined to comment on details of the case, the woman said that when four men barged into the garage of her family’s South Los Angeles home Monday afternoon, one of them showed her a gun.

“The guy with the gun put my arm behind my back and led me to a van,” said the woman, who declined to be identified out of fear of reprisal. “They said, ‘Since we can’t find your brother’s friend, we’re going to take you.’ I was really scared. I didn’t know anything.” The kidnapers demanded a $210,000 ransom, saying she had relatives who were drug dealers, she told police.

The woman said that despite the man’s statement, her family is not involved in drug deals. The woman’s brother is a former gang member now serving time for assault, said the victim’s 54-year-old mother, who also declined to be named.

Los Angeles police rescued the kidnap victim unharmed early Wednesday at a Sun Valley auto body shop. Six men, one woman and a 17-year-old youth have been charged with kidnaping for ransom. Two women arrested have been released, authorities said.

In custody and facing charges of kidnaping for ransom are Carlos Gomez, 35, a transient; Jesus Lizarraga, 29, a transient; Manuel Avendano, 29, of Sun Valley; Rene Sanchez, 25, of Los Angeles; Jaime Avendano, 21, of Sun Valley; Lourdes Vargas, 29, of Los Angeles, and Edgar Gomez, 37, a transient, authorities said. The name of the youth was not released.

The kidnap victim said Thursday that she recognized one of the men as an acquaintance of her brother’s. The woman and her mother said they did not recognize the others.

The young woman said her abductors threatened to kill her.

“They had me so scared,” she said. “These people said they couldn’t wait any longer. They told me they would cut my fingers off for every hour that they didn’t get the money.”

An unemployed custodial worker, the woman and her family have lived in the predominantly black and Latino neighborhood of East 43rd Place for six months.

At first, she said, the abductors kept a blindfold on her. They drove for about 15 minutes, arriving at a house where she saw five men and two women. The women said they were also held captive. Like her, one of the women was pregnant.

“She said they had her 3-year-old daughter and her sister’s 5-month-old boy,” the victim said.

District attorney’s spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons and police would not say if the women--who were briefly arrested and then released--were kidnap victims.

The woman said her abductors allowed her to remove the blindfold so she could eat fast-food tacos with the other women. She was blindfolded again and driven to another apartment.

From there, the kidnapers called her mother. The men allowed their victim to get on the line and tell her mother that she was uninjured “but they were talking about killing me,” the victim said. One of the abductors, she said, told her that “if they didn’t come up with the money, he would take me to his boss in Mexico.”

The victim’s mother said that she received more than a dozen ransom calls during the 36-hour ordeal. She said she called police about 30 minutes after her daughter was abducted and was told how to deal with the kidnapers.

The mother said that Tuesday police arrested a man, a juvenile and a woman when the three went to the family’s home to pick up the ransom--a suitcase that contained no money. When the mother was contacted again by an abductor, she persuaded him that she did not know what had happened to the three couriers.

Later Tuesday, the kidnapers moved to the FC&M; Body Shop in Sun Valley, the victim said. Finally, the mother said, the caller again phoned and demanded that she send another daughter to deliver the ransom to the body shop. Police made the other arrests there at about 2:30 a.m. Wednesday without incident. Officers recovered some firearms, said Lt. Fred Nixon.

FC&M; Body Shop is in the center of a row of warehouse buildings in an area dotted with auto shops and junkyards. The body shop was closed and locked Thursday. Herman Istrin, owner of the warehouse strip, said three partners rented the double-sized warehouse for $2,000 a month and paid through June 28. The leaseholder was not arrested.

The kidnap victim’s mother said Thursday that she wants to move out of the neighborhood and that her pregnant daughter is afraid to answer the door and will not go outside alone. She said she cannot understand how the caller expected her to raise the ransom money. “It would have taken me 40 years to raise $210,000,” she said.