US kidnapping: ‘Help me’ sign leads to rescue of young girl in Southern California

A "Help Me!" sign used by a 13-year-old girl kidnapped in Texas. Photo / AP

A 13-year-old girl kidnapped in Texas and sexually assaulted was rescued in Southern California when passers-by saw her hold up a “help me” sign in a parked car, police and federal authorities said.

The rescue occurred July 9 in Long Beach, south of Los Angeles, when officers responded to a trouble call and found the “visibly emotional and distressed girl,” police said in a press release on Thursday.

“Through their investigation, officers learned the Good Samaritans were in a parking lot when they saw the victim in a parked vehicle holding up a piece of paper with ‘help me’ written on it. They acknowledged the note and immediately called 9-1-1,” police said.

Steven Robert Sablan, 61, of Cleburne, Texas, was arrested and on Thursday was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of kidnapping and transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, according to the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

Sablan was being held at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown LA. It was not immediately known if he had an attorney.

The girl was walking down a street in San Antonio, Texas, on July 6 when Sablan drove up, raised a black handgun and told her, “If you don’t get in the car with me, I am going to hurt you,” an FBI agent wrote in an affidavit supporting the criminal complaint.

According to the account, the girl had left home without telling her parents because she was attempting to visit a school friend who had moved to Australia a year earlier but kept in touch through an internet chatroom.

At some point after getting in Sablan’s car, the girl told him about her friend and Sablan said he could take her to a cruise ship to go to Australia, but that she would have to do something for him, the affidavit said.

The suspect stopped the car and sexually assaulted the girl, who told him to stop but was scared that she would be hurt if she did not comply, the agent wrote.

Sablan sexually assaulted the girl several more times on the drive from San Antonio through New Mexico and Arizona and into California, the affidavit said. Meanwhile, the girl’s mother reported her missing to San Antonio authorities on July 7.

In Long Beach, the suspect parked at a laundromat and told the girl to change her clothes, then took her clothes and his inside, creating the opportunity for the girl to write “help me” on a piece of note paper, according to the document.

When Long Beach police officers arrived, Sablan was standing outside the car and they observed the girl mouth the word “help,” the agent wrote.

During the arrest, officers found a pair of silver handcuffs in Sablan’s back pocket and that he was wanted for burglary in Fort Worth. A search of the vehicle turned up the a black plastic BB gun, the “help me” sign, a switchblade knife and black handcuffs in packaging labelled “Fetish Fantasy Series Designer Cuffs,” the document said.

The affidavit said Sablan was convicted of robbery with a deadly weapon in 1979, robbery with a deadly weapon and burglary in 1985 and possession of a controlled substance in 2016.

The girl was placed in the custody of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.