But there is a new twist in the case. Investigators can’t find the woman after she checked out of a hospital, where she was being treated for the trauma inflicted by her ordeal. “She didn’t leave a phone number, so we can’t really call her,” Yep said. The are “in the process of trying to locate her.”
Finding the woman, who is in her 20s, is important because police want to ask her about new information they’ve uncovered. Her initial story that she did not know her kidnappers is now questioned.
“It was not a stranger-type kidnap,” Yep said. “There was a relationship between the victim and the suspects.” Investigators know the identify of the woman, he said.
Investigators also believe that contrary to what they first told reporters, she was not forced into the women’s vehicle. “She went willingly with these woman and whatever else happened, happened,” Det. Yep said.
As for the woman’s claim the she was abducted with the intent of forcing her into prostitution, Yep said local residents should have no fear of of a sex slave ring kidnapping them. “Definitely not, that’s not going on out here in Van Nuys,” he said.