Man charged with kidnapping 3-year-old girl from family’s apartment

A man suspected of snatching a 3-year-old girl through the window of her family’s Newhall apartment was charged Monday with burglary, kidnapping and attempted kidnapping, authorities said.

After taking the screen off the apartment window Thursday, Ethan Odom, 37, allegedly abducted the girl, said Sarah Ardalani, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

The girl’s older sister witnessed the kidnapping and yelled for her father, prosecutors said. After calling 911, the kidnapped girl’s father and uncle began to search for her and eventually located her in Odom’s arms, prosecutors said.

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies arrested Odom and returned the 3-year-old girl to her family, prosecutors said.

Over the course of the investigating, authorities said, Odom was linked to a separate attempted kidnapping on the same night, just one block away.

An hour before the abduction of the 3-year-old, prosecutors said he tried to coax away a 9-year-old girl who was walking with her mother.

In 2011, Odom was convicted of receiving stolen property.

At his arraignment Monday, Odom pleaded not guilty. His public defender did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If convicted on all charges, he faces about 13 years in state prison.

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