L.A. police ID suspect in girl's abduction case
LOS ANGELES Police said Saturday they are looking for a transient in the kidnapping of a 10-year-old girl who was snatched from her San Fernando Valley home before dawn last week and abandoned hours later in front of a hospital.
Investigators identified 30-year-old Tobias Dustin Summers as a suspect in the case but couldn't elaborate on the motive or what led them to him. Police don't know if the girl was targeted but said they don't believe Summers had a connection to her family.
"We have no information that the family knew this individual or that the individual knew any members of the family," Los Angeles Police Deputy Chief Kirk Albanese said.
About 40 detectives have been working around the clock looking for clues since the girl was abducted from her home Wednesday. She was found hours later, wandering near a Starbucks several miles away.
The girl was barefoot, had bruises and scratches, and wasn't wearing the same clothes she had on when she vanished. She told the police two men she didn't recognize had taken her from her home.
Police initially said they were looking for two suspects, but now are focusing their efforts on locating Summers.
"This is the only person we are looking for right now," Albanese said Saturday.
Investigators have said they believe the girl was driven around the San Fernando Valley in a couple of cars and taken to at least two locations, including a storage facility, before she was released.
A passer-by who recognized her picture from media reports saw her outside the Starbucks and called police. The girl had wandered there from the hospital where she had been dropped.
Summers, who has a distinctive tattoo of a ghoulish face on his right arm, has arrests dating back to 2002, police said. Among them are robbery, grand theft auto, possession of explosives and kidnapping, authorities said.
Police said they had no details on the prior kidnapping case.
Summers was released from prison in July on a petty theft conviction as part of a California law designed to ease crowding in state prisons. He also spent six days behind bars in January on a probation violation.
Summers last checked in with his probation officer at some point earlier this month and had been complying with his release terms, police said. He is known to frequent the area where the kidnapping took place.
The Los Angeles Times reported that law enforcement sources said the girl was sexually assaulted. The Associated Press does not identify victims of sexual assault. Summers isn't a registered sex offender, police said.
Albanese said Summers had been arrested four years ago for investigation of battery that involved child annoyance. Court records show Summers was convicted of battery in September 2009 but the child annoyance charge was either dismissed or not prosecuted.
Summers has family in Southern California, according to police, and the FBI said it will obtain a warrant for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, if the agency determines he has fled the state.