Police Seek Kidnappers of Boy, Woman Who Freed Him

With very little information to go on, police were still searching Sunday for descriptions of an unidentified woman and the car she was driving when she dropped off a kidnapped 7-year-old boy at a Northridge hospital Saturday.

Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Lt. Anthony Alba said that if none of the investigators’ leads pan out and officers are unable to find the two masked men who kidnapped Matthew Simms from his parents’ Sherman Oaks home, officers will turn to the public for help.

“If they can’t come up with anything, then we will have to seek some help,” Alba said.

The identity of the woman who helped the boy escape from the home where he was held could provide police with the most promising clues in the search for the kidnappers, police said.

Meanwhile, family members said the boy, who was held for 20 hours, was resting safely at home Sunday.

“It’s a relief,” said the boy’s grandfather, Arthur J. Simms. “I had just hoped he was OK and he was all right.”

Simms said he had no idea who or why anyone would abduct his grandson. “We have no idea yet, but we’ll find out sooner or later,” said Simms, who owns a chain of restaurants called Mimi’s Cafes.

The restaurants, which generated more than $40 million in revenue last year, are now run by Matthew’s uncle, Thomas Simms.

At 12:30 p.m. Friday, two men burst into the Simms’ Sherman Oaks home, forcing the maid and the boy’s mother, Rochelle Simms, to the floor. While waving guns, the men took the boy and fled the scene. After the kidnapping, police in the area were put on tactical alert, a heightened state of vigilance.

The kidnappers called about an hour later, police said, threatening to kill the boy if their demands were not met. Police declined to reveal the nature of the demands.

Early Saturday morning, a woman who lived at the house where the kidnappers were keeping the boy waited until they were asleep and then whisked Matthew to Northridge Hospital Medical Center. Doctors examined the boy and found that he had not been harmed.

Members of the media cooperated with the police by describing the incident as a home-invasion robbery. Police feared that too much publicity in the case might have prompted the kidnappers to hurt the boy.

Times staff writer Julie Tamaki contributed to this story.