Girl Describes Abduction, Night of Terror at Motel

GARDEN GROVE — A 15-year-old girl abducted during the robbery of a fast-food restaurant was released Friday after a terrifying night with two men in a Long Beach motel, where they raped and beat a prostitute, police said.

The men, James Barron Martin, 33, and Donald Ameche Morse, 37, both of Westminster, were arrested at the motel after the “bizarre and absolutely tragic” experience, Garden Grove Police Capt. Dave Abrecht said.

Police said the Anaheim girl was abducted about 10:15 p.m. Thursday as she stood with her boyfriend in the parking lot of the Jack in the Box on Katella Avenue, where he works. The girl had borrowed her brother’s car to pick up her boyfriend when his shift ended, she said.

A white Toyota pulled into the lot and a man jumped out, pointed a handgun at the couple and dragged the boyfriend inside the restaurant, police said. The men told the girl to wait with the second man, who was behind the wheel, or they would kill her boyfriend, she said.

Inside, the man held the boyfriend hostage and demanded cash from the cashier, waving the gun at several other people. With the cash in hand, he ran outside. Then, for an unknown reason, the man grabbed the girl and forced her into the car, leaving her purse, keys and other identification behind, Abrecht said.

“They had the money, they could have just split,” Abrecht said.

The robbers told the girl that she just happened to be “at the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said later at her home. She “was their insurance,” she said. “They were really afraid of getting caught.”

The men then drove to the Chief Motel on Long Beach Boulevard in Long Beach, where one of them registered under his real name about 10:30 p.m., the manager said. Police said the three then went into one of the rooms and would not allow the girl to leave. A short time later, one of the men left “to go get another woman” and returned with a 33-year-old prostitute, police said.

The girl said she sat in a corner of the dingy room, forced to watch as the men and the woman repeatedly had sex, smoked crack and drank beer through the night.

But when the woman said she wanted to go to the liquor store down the street, one of the men became angry and raped and beat her, police said.

The woman suffered a broken jaw, bloodied nose and black eye, police said.

Police said the girl told them she also had been sexually assaulted. But interviewed at her home, she said the men had not hurt her.

The girl said she felt helpless, unable to rescue the other woman and worried that the men would turn their fury on her.

“I was talking sweet to them so they would not hurt me,” she said. “I tried to play cool with them.”

In the morning, police said, the men saw a news report on television about the kidnapping and became alarmed when the teenager’s photograph was broadcast. About 8 a.m., one of the men drove the girl to the intersection of Artesia Boulevard and Orange Avenue in Long Beach, gave her a few dollars and left her there, police said.

The girl said she promised the men she would not call police. But as soon as the man left, she ran to a dry cleaners for help.

Within minutes an officer drove by and the girl frantically flagged him down and directed him to the motel, police said.

Officers found both suspects and the second victim inside.

“They were still there, wondering what they should do next,” Long Beach Police Capt. Harry Erickson said.

The girl, who returned home late Friday afternoon after being taken to Orangewood Children’s Home, was shaken but relieved.

“I’m just really happy to be alive,” she said as relatives huddled around her, holding her hand and hugging her. “I’m angry though. I don’t know why they did this to me.”

Abrecht said police “are still trying to figure out why they took her in the first place.”

Martin and Morse were booked into the Long Beach Jail, and bail was set at $600,000.

“It is just so weird, and scary, the whole thing,” the victim’s mother said. “She is such a good girl . . . I don’t know what to think about this world.”