Teens Rescued, Abductor Killed After Massive Statewide Search

So ended a strange and troubling episode that featured the first use in California of a new freeway alert system designed to foil kidnappings. "Amber alert" freeway signs flashed for hours Thursday morning--until they were changed to "Child abducted" to end confusion.

Only later did authorities say that the two girls, who are 16 and 17 years old, told investigators that the kidnapper, Roy Ratliff, had raped them. Kern County Sheriff-Coroner Carl Sparks said he believed Ratliff was on his way to kill the girls and bury their bodies in the desert when he was caught on a desolate stretch of road between Ridgecrest and Lake Isabella.

"The girls are safe," Assistant Los Angeles County Sheriff Larry Waldie told a grateful crowd gathered at the Lancaster sheriff's station shortly after 1 p.m. The crowd applauded seconds later when Waldie announced, "The suspect is deceased."

A terrifying odyssey that began early Thursday on a dusty lovers' lane in the Antelope Valley came to a bittersweet end 12 hours later when two teenage girls were rescued from a man who had kidnapped them at gunpoint. The kidnapper was shot to death in a dry river bed in Kern County, ending a statewide manhunt.

In both cases, that warning was followed by a description of the vehicle being driven by the suspected kidnapper, a white 1980 Ford Bronco.

Authorities credited that system with leading to the first tip about the suspect's whereabouts, and ultimately to his death.

The double kidnapping came on the heels of tragic abductions involving younger children in recent months, and terrified friends and relatives of the two girls, both of whom were described as exceptionally bright, strong and popular students at their respective high schools.

(The Times is not naming the girls because the paper withholds the names of alleged victims of sexual assaults.)

"My heart went back in my chest when I heard the girls were alive," said the mother of the 17-year-old when the rescue was announced.

The girls, who were not friends, had been in two cars, each with a boy, when they were accosted sometime after midnight at a popular teen gathering spot on a remote hilltop overlooking the tiny town of Quartz Hill, just west of Palmdale and Lancaster.

According to authorities, Ratliff--a 37-year-old ex-convict who was on the run from a rape charge--pulled up in a gray Saturn that he had stolen at gunpoint in Las Vegas two weeks earlier. The car had a flat tire, leading some law enforcement officials to speculate that his primary interest was in getting another vehicle.

Brandishing a semiautomatic handgun, Ratliff approached both cars containing the teens, ordered them out, demanded money from the boys and tied them up with silver duct tape. He then ordered the girls into the Bronco that had been driven by one of the boys, Eric Brown, and drove off.

At some point before he left, authorities said, Ratliff poured a can of gasoline over the Saturn in an apparent attempt to destroy the car by burning it. It did not ignite.

Brown said Ratliff seemingly appeared out of nowhere on the plateau known locally as Quartz Hill Mountain, which offers a sweeping nighttime view of desert, city lights and stars.

"I never heard him get out of the car, I didn't see him get out of the car, and he was just suddenly at my window with a gun," he told KCAL-TV Channel 9. "He told me to give him all my money.... He said a lot of stuff. Mostly, it sounded like he was trying to decide whether to kill me or not."

The other boy, Frank Melero Jr., eventually was able to wriggle free of the duct tape and call his sister, Elizabeth Melero, who said he told her he had been robbed. Initially, she said, he didn't realize the girls had been kidnapped.