Kidnapings San Bernardino County

Ontario police arrested a fourth suspect in a Labor Day weekend kidnaping that left a teen-age girl dead and two other women raped and stabbed. Detectives aided by the Police Department's SWAT team arrested Danny Sorian, 32, of Ontario at the converted garage where he lived. He was booked into San Bernardino County Jail on charges of robbery, kidnaping, rape and homicide.

A Lucerne Valley man admits barging into a school district office, then handcuffing and abducting the superintendent. But what authorities call a kidnapping, the man insists, was merely a defiant stand against a government that is "out of control." In his first interview since last week's confrontation, Carl Williams also said he will force prosecutors to take his case to trial.

It started six months ago, deputies believe, with an short argument that resulted in a long, smoldering grudge. But it ended on Monday, when an anonymous call sent San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies to a locked wooden shed in a Fontana backyard. When they broke the lock, they found a young woman chained to a wall, dehydrated and marked with bruises and rope burns. "Oh, thank God you're here," Sgt. Charles May quoted the weeping young woman as having told rescuers.

San Bernardino County's high desert is full of rugged individualists, folks who are there not in spite of seclusion but because of it. Privacy is as precious as air-conditioning and many expect little more from their government than postal service and traffic lights.

Ontario police investigators inched forward Tuesday in their hunt for three men in a grisly weekend kidnaping that left one teen-age girl dead and two other women raped and stabbed. A car used in the abduction was recovered Tuesday afternoon abandoned in the community of Rubidoux, near Riverside, but detectives said their investigation, including interviews with the surviving victims, had produced little useful evidence.

Authorities sought two people who abducted a Riverside woman in the parking lot of a supermarket in Ontario and released her 650 miles away, near Lakeview in southern Oregon. The victim, Karen Sue Ripley, was found wandering on a highway Sunday, Oregon State Police said. Ripley told troopers a man and woman forced their way into her car Friday and made her drive north. She said they hit her over the head with a pistol when they reached the Lakeview area, then left her car and fled on foot.

Alan Erickson, the bearded loner from Pioneertown who was arrested after he allegedly abducted two neighbor girls and then abandoned them in the eastern Mojave Desert, has agreed to waive extradition and will be returned to San Bernardino County from Nevada today, authorities said. Erickson, 36, sparked a massive manhunt after disappearing June 15 with half-sisters Silver Putnam, 6, and Kristina Johnson, 3.

Two young girls found abandoned in the Mojave Desert six days after they disappeared with an adult family friend remained hospitalized Friday as San Bernardino sheriff's deputies continued to comb the Barstow area for the alleged abductor. Kristina Johnson, 3, of Pioneertown, was suffering from partial kidney failure and was in serious condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center.

A man arrested in the disappearance of two girls abandoned without food or water in the searing Mojave Desert pleaded guilty to child endangerment Wednesday. Alan Erickson, 36, of Pioneertown, entered his plea to two counts of child endangerment before Municipal Judge Bert Swift. Erickson was charged in connection with the disappearance of Silver Putman, 6, and her half-sister Kristina Johnson, 3. Erickson was a family friend.

The federal law enforcement officer who kidnapped a 13-year-old boy Friday died of a self-inflicted gunshot--not police gunfire--after officers entered his hotel room, an autopsy report showed Monday. David L. Clairmont, an officer with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles, died after an 11-hour standoff that ended Saturday morning in a room at the Country Suites near the Ontario Mills shopping center.

The federal law enforcement officer who kidnapped a 13-year-old boy Friday died of a self-inflicted gunshot--not police gunfire--after officers entered his hotel room, an autopsy report showed Monday. David L. Clairmont, an officer with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Los Angeles, died after an 11-hour standoff that ended Saturday morning in a room at the Country Suites near the Ontario Mills shopping center.

A police SWAT team rescued a 13-year-old boy Saturday who had been held hostage in an Ontario hotel by a federal police officer who had kidnapped him 24 hours earlier and had allegedly sexually abused him last summer. A short time later, David Leonard Clairmont, 32, was found dead in a tear gas-filled hotel bathroom after an exchange of gunfire with Ontario police.

A San Bernardino man who was carjacked and kidnaped by three gunmen was found dead the same day inside his car's trunk in the City of Industry, sheriff's deputies said Sunday. Juaquim Dagraca, 30, and his wife had been sitting in their Chrysler sedan in San Bernardino about 2 a.m. Saturday when the gunmen ordered Dagraca into the trunk and released his wife unharmed before driving away, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies.

Two teen-age boys who had been kidnaped during a home invasion robbery in Chino Hills were found safe along a freeway early Sunday, but they have given investigators inconsistent versions of their abduction, authorities said. Neither boy was harmed, but their stories "don't totally collaborate," said San Bernardino County Sheriff's Deputy Cheryl Huff, a department spokeswoman. The boys were dropped off on the Pomona Freeway at Mountain Avenue shortly after 3 a.m., she said.

San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies searched Saturday for a group of Asian gang members accused of kidnaping two boys and terrorizing 19 people during a home invasion robbery in Chino Hills. The men also sexually assaulted a teen-age girl and took an undetermined amount of money, property and two cars in the Friday night incident, said sheriff's Detective Kish Doyle. "We are very concerned about the kidnap victims because we don't know where they are or if they are OK," Doyle said.

A Los Angeles woman who abducted her two young daughters at knifepoint from a social worker was being sought Wednesday by authorities who said they fear for the children's safety. The woman, Ana Urbina, 37, told relatives about three weeks ago that she was going to kill herself and the two children, said Deputy Laurie Savage of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. "We're obviously concerned about her mental condition and the safety of the children."

In addition to family members and friends, registered sex offenders were interviewed by detectives Monday in hopes of finding an 8-year-old girl believed kidnaped at a swap meet. Sylvia Elaine Mangos of Twentynine Palms was last seen about 8 a.m. Sunday at the Yucca Valley Swap Meet at the Sky Drive-in, 110 miles east of Los Angeles. Hundreds of volunteers and tracking dogs searched Sunday and Monday for the girl, said Deputy Jerry Bucklin of the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.

A 4-year-old boy snatched from his mother's arms by his father--who then turned around and killed the boy's mother--was mysteriously returned to his grandmother's home in Coachella on Wednesday, San Bernardino County authorities said. The slaying occurred in a hospital parking lot in Loma Linda on Valentine's Day. Officers are still looking for Juan Manuel Navarro, the boyfriend of Ignacia Manriguez, 29, and the boy's father.

A 4-year-old boy snatched from his mother's arms by his father--who then turned around and killed the boy's mother--was mysteriously returned to his grandmother's home in Coachella on Wednesday, San Bernardino County authorities said. The slaying occurred in a hospital parking lot in Loma Linda on Valentine's Day. Officers are still looking for Juan Manuel Navarro, the boyfriend of Ignacia Manriguez, 29, and the boy's father.

Detectives searched Monday for a gunman who fled with a 4-year-old boy after shooting the child's mother to death in a hospital parking lot. Police want to question the boy's father, Juan Manuel Navarro, about the slaying. The boy's condition and whereabouts were unknown, but "we're assuming (Navarro) has him," San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department dispatcher Sean Kelly said Monday.