Local News in Brief : Kidnap Victim Turns Into an Abductor

An apparent kidnap victim turned into a kidnaper himself Friday night when he escaped from his captors at a Castaic service station by stealing a van with two young sisters in it and fleeing through a rain of gunfire, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reported.

The man, who had apparently been abducted from Los Angeles by a group of at least three other men in what may have been a drug- and gang-related incident, stole a 1987 Dodge Caravan. The sisters, Amanda 4, and Jana Engholm 2, were found abandoned in the van in Pasadena about an hour later, Sheriff’s Lt. Ed Chenal of the Santa Clarita Valley station, said. Their captor had fled.

The children were waiting in the van while their father paid for the gas he had just pumped when the man escaped from his captors, who had just arrived at the service station in two cars. He leaped into the van and sped off, Chenal said. Chenal said the original kidnapers pursued the van, shooting at it. Deputies caught one of the pursuing cars and arrested one suspect, Chenal said, but the van and the other pursuing vehicle vanished.