Kidnapper

The molester who is stalking the children of Kensington and Feltonville is still on the loose. A possible suspect questioned by police Friday has an alibi for at least one of the abductions, Lt. Ken Coluzzi, of the sex-crimes unit, said yesterday. "There's a good chance he will be ruled out. " Since June 28, four young girls have been kidnapped from their homes in the middle of the night by a strange man, driven around for a while, then returned and dropped near their homes.

A federal judge in Philadelphia yesterday sentenced a Lancaster County man to up to 18 years in prison on a kidnapping charge and said the case was a "classic" example of why motorists shouldn't pick up hitchhikers. U.S. District Judge Clarence C. Newcomer said the defendant, Howard Peters, 24, had committed "an uncivilized, animalistic and brutal crime" after thumbing a ride for himself, his crippled common-law wife and their two dogs Oct. 10 on a highway in Virginia. The couple commandeered the car of a 17-year-old college student who was threatened with a knife, beaten by Peters to the point of semi-consciousness, thrown in the car's trunk, robbed of about $16 and taken to Pennsylvania, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald K. Noble.

As a kidnapper, Rafael Rivera was a total bust last June 25. First of all, he abducted the wrong man. The he became frustrated when the victim's sister-in-law was unable to make a $40,000 ransom demand. And, finally, he made the biggest blunder a kidnapper can make. Rivera, 23, of Ella Street near Westmoreland, made all his phone demands for cash from the same public phone booth. The cops traced the calls to the booth near B Street and Erie Avenue, and when they arrived, Rivera knew he was hung up. He couldn't escape and was taken into custody.

The search continued yesterday for a man who abducted two Burlington County women in Pemberton Township and later raped one of them, police said. The women, ages 18 and 23, told police that they were walking on Circle Drive in the Browns Mills section late Wednesday when a driver pulled up, leveled a handgun, and ordered them into his beige SUV, police said. The abductor, described as heavyset and about 5-foot-10, drove through several sections of the township before stopping on an isolated road and forcing out the 23-year-old, said Sgt. David Jantas, spokesman for Pemberton Township police.

DENVER - A missing 9-year-old girl escaped from an apparent kidnapper and called 911 herself from a convenience store in Colorado Springs on Friday. The Pueblo girl was reported missing Thursday night after she didn't return home from school. The suspect, Jose Garcia, 29, is also a suspect in an alleged molestation involving a different girl, Pueblo Police Capt. Eric Bravo said. The car of the accused kidnapper broke down Friday morning in Colorado Springs, and a passerby gave them a ride to a Circle K store, police said.

The admitted kidnapper's apology was not good enough. Common Pleas Judge Carolyn E. Temin told Anthony Pack, 25, that invading the home of the owner of a North Philadelphia restaurant and terrorizing the family before kidnapping the wife and her 9-year-old son was so "horrendous" that he deserved severe punishment. So, Temin yesterday sentenced Pack to 16 to 60 years in jail, bringing tears to members of his family. Assistant District Attorney Terri Domsky said Pack and another man forced their way past Enh Ly in the early morning of Oct. 6, 1996, and after beating her husband, tied them both to a radiator and ransacked the house.

He's every parent's worst nightmare, and he's loose in the Northeast. Police are seeking a man, possibly carrying a gun, who attempted to kidnap an 11-year-old girl on her way to school yesterday. Police suspect the same man abducted two 12-year-old girls on Saturday before releasing them unharmed in Center City four hours later. The man is described as white with reddish brown hair and a mustache, about 5-feet-8 to 5-feet-10, medium build, in his 20s or 30s, with very hairy arms and hands.

Wang Feng Lian, 28, had three children of her own. But that didn't stop her from kidnapping and selling someone else's child. One day three years ago, in October 1989, she and two friends kidnapped a 1-year-old boy. They boarded a train with him and rode for about 20 hours, from Shaanxi Province to Henan Province. There, they sold him. The motive: money. "He was sold for 3,800 yuan (about $650), but I only got 970 yuan (about $165)," said Wang, who never went to school.

Seventy-seven years ago, a sensational kidnapping rocked Montgomery County. A 13-month-old boy was snatched from his crib and later died. The kidnapper, who called himself "The Crank," exchanged ransom demands with the child's family for months before being captured. It all began when August Pasquale, 35 - having just missed the last trolley from Norristown to Philadelphia - was walking eastward toward the city one day late in May 1920, according to files of the Historical Society of Montgomery County.

DENVER - A missing 9-year-old girl escaped from an apparent kidnapper and called 911 herself from a convenience store in Colorado Springs on Friday. The Pueblo girl was reported missing Thursday night after she didn't return home from school. The suspect, Jose Garcia, 29, is also a suspect in an alleged molestation involving a different girl, Pueblo Police Capt. Eric Bravo said. The car of the accused kidnapper broke down Friday morning in Colorado Springs, and a passerby gave them a ride to a Circle K store, police said.

PLACERVILLE, Calif. - Jaycee Dugard refused to "waste another second" in the presence of the married couple she said stole her life. She didn't want to be in a northern California courtroom yesterday as 60-year-old Phillip Garrido, the serial sex offender who kidnapped, raped and held her captive for 18 years, was ordered to spend the rest of his life in prison and his wife, Nancy, 55, was given a decades-long sentence. The feelings the 31-year-old victim had never been able to express while she was held prisoner did make it into court.

SALT LAKE CITY - Elizabeth Smart says she was thrilled with the two life sentences given to the man who kidnapped her from the bedroom of her Utah home nearly nine years ago. Smart said at a news conference yesterday after the hearing that she fully believes street-preacher David Brian Mitchell knew exactly what he was doing when he abducted and raped her, despite arguments by his lawyers for years that he was mentally incompetent to stand trial....

PLACERVILLE, Calif. - A convicted sex offender and his wife pleaded guilty yesterday to kidnapping and raping Jaycee Dugard when she was 11 and holding her captive for nearly two decades. The pleas came as part of a surprise deal with prosecutors that will spare victim Dugard - and her two daughters born after she was raped by defendant Phillip Garrido - from having to testify at a trial. "I'm relieved that Phillip and Nancy Garrido have finally acknowledged their guilt and confessed to their crimes against me and my family," Dugard said in a statement released by her spokeswoman, Nancy Seltzer.

Murder suspects Craig Arno, 44, and Jessica Kisby, 24, pleaded not guilty to kidnapping and carjacking charges Wednesday during a brief hearing in Atlantic County Superior Court. The couple, who remain targets of a murder investigation in the death of North Jersey grocer Martin Caballero, said little as they appeared in orange jumpsuits and handcuffs before Judge Michael Donio. Donio set bail at $500,000 for Arno, $400,000 for Kisby. "In the near future, we anticipate new charges," Atlantic County Prosecutor Theodore Housel told Donio.

The last of three defendants who abducted a Chester County man for ransom in October 2004 - a three-day ordeal that ended with an FBI shootout - was sentenced yesterday to more than 26 years in jail. U.S. District Judge Juan R. Sanchez ordered Jose Antonio Santiago, 66, of Downingtown and Toughkenamon, to spend 319 months in prison for his role in the violent hostage-taking of Carlos Correa on Oct. 8, 2004. Authorities said Correa was targeted because the defendants believed his parents, Rosemary and Gustavo "Gus" Correa, could afford to pay the $1 million ransom they demanded.

In the same way 1967's Valley of the Dolls took the trash prose of Jacqueline Susann's L.A. novel and turned it into eye-poppingly awful cinema, Bret Easton Ellis' The Informers - another tale of Tinseltown drugs, sex and excess - has transferred itself to the screen with mind-boggling, laugh-inciting horribleness. Set in 1983, when the hair was big and the music bad (Pat Benatar, Gary Numan, Flock of Seagulls), The Informers tracks a beautiful group of guys and gals who party like their lives depend on it. In fact, one of them dies right off the bat - hit by a car as he's heading off to a menage a trois.

The retrial of the man charged in the disappearance of a state lawmaker's son has been postponed indefinitely because the defense lawyer has been afflicted by facial paralysis. Common Pleas Court Judge Lisa M. Rau sent the jury home yesterday morning after attorney Gary Silver told the court that the left side of his face has been affected by Bell's palsy, making it hard for him to talk. Rau's office said that lawyers from both sides would check in daily and that the case would resume as soon as possible.

BRITAIN'S News of the World, the grain-of-salt gossip tab, reports that UK gangsters have told jailed Blake Fielder-Civil that wife Amy Winehouse would be kidnapped unless he coughs up approximately $200,000. It's that rare case of the ransom request before the kidnapping. "Blake's petrified," an unidentified hoosegow source told News of the World. "He's living in fear for Amy's life and his own. "At first he thought the guys in here were just trying their luck, but the threats have got really bad. He's now under no illusions and convinced they'll go through with what they say. "[Amy's]

There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that Sandra Bernhard is the love child of Mick Jagger and Fran Lebowitz, though, like them, she is an electric performer and provocative social satirist possessed of a formidable kisser. Because Bernhard makes us laugh and because she makes us think - more often simultaneously than serially - she will be rewarded with artistic-achievement honors tomorrow at the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. Prior to the 7:30 p.m. screening of her short Twenty Dollar Drinks and the feature What's Up Scarlet?