Kidnapping

PETALUMA, Calif. -- The parolee accused of killing Polly Klaas has told police the 12-year-old girl was alive and hidden in the woods nearby while sheriff's deputies helped free his car from a ditch shortly after the kidnapping.In a detailed confession, twice-convicted kidnapper Richard Allen Davis said he returned to the scene and picked up Polly, then took her 40 miles to Cloverdale, Calif., and strangled her, a law enforcement official said yesterday. It is unclear how soon he returned or how long Polly remained alive.

A 35-year-old man was arrested yesterday and charged with kidnapping his ex-girlfriend Sunday from her Columbia apartment, Howard County police said.Police believe a man went to the woman's apartment in the 4900 block of Blue Wing Court around 6 p.m., knocked on her door, and forced her into his car, said Sgt. Morris Carroll, Howard County police spokesman."

The woman serving 30 years for kidnapping a baby from his mother's room at Sinai Hospital in 1989 tried unsuccessfully yesterday to win an appeal of her conviction in Baltimore Circuit Court.Karleane Wilkinson, a native of Jamaica, was arrested Nov. 16, 1989, at her home near Woodmoor -- with the missing Avery Norris. The boy disappeared Sept. 21, 1989, when he was 2 days old, after a woman dressed as a nurse told his mother she was taking him to a hospital nursery, city police said.A jury convicted Wilkinson of kidnapping a child younger than 16, and she received the maximum sentence from Judge Joseph I. Pines in April 1990.

A 16-year-old Odenton youth was arrested and two others were charged in a warrant Monday with kidnapping a 14-year-old Odenton boy from his home, taking him into woods near Arundel Middle School, and beating him over a drug debt, county police said.James Robert Jordan, 16, of the 1000 block of Autumn Gold Road and Dante Livingston, also 16, of the 1300 block of Burlington Drive were charged as adults with kidnapping, kidnapping a child under 16, second-degree assault, and false imprisonment.

A 38-year-old Dundalk doctor who was convicted of daytime housebreaking, kidnapping, carrying a dangerous weapon and eluding police was sentenced yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court to 29 years in prison.Judge J. William Hinkel said he agreed with the state's contention that Leonard Harris is a danger to society. "He becomes more dangerous because of his position of trust in the community as a medical doctor," the judge said.Harris was convicted of breaking into a woman's White Marsh apartment, then assaulting and kidnapping another woman who had yelled for him to stop.

A 24-year-old Baltimore man charged with kidnapping his estranged wife as she walked to a city subway station Tuesday remained at large last night, despite a massive search to find him in the area surrounding Greensboro, Ga.The hunt for Wade Morris Lucas Jr., of the 1900 block of Woodlawn Drive, began early Friday morning when his estranged wife, Tara S. McEntyre, 22, escaped from him in Greensboro, about 40 miles southeast of Atlanta.Ms. McEntyre, a clerk in the Baltimore state's attorney's office, was shot in the hip as she fled from Mr. Lucas.

Three residents of New York City have been arrested in connection with the attempted kidnapping of an 18-year-old woman in Edgewood, Harford County sheriff's deputies said. Carl Lawrence Clerk, 22, Novell Teresa Dolly, 18, and Vanessa Grinvalski, 16, all of the Bronx, are being held at the Harford County Detention Center. Clerk faces kidnapping and false imprisonment charges, while Dolly and Grinvalski were charged with kidnapping and making a false statement, said Sgt. Christina R. Presberry, spokeswoman for the Harford County Sheriff's Office.

Baltimore prosecutors have dismissed kidnapping, handgun and sex offense charges against Kevin Lee Hall, a longtime friend and former campaign aide to Republican congressional candidate Larry Hogan Jr.The victim, a 17-year-old Baltimore boy, recanted his allegations that Mr. Hall had kidnapped him in Southwest Baltimore and forced him to engage in sex acts at an Elkridge motel, said Baltimore State's Attorney Stuart O. Simms.Investigators found inaccuracies in the teen's allegations, which he made a month ago, Mr. Simms said.

A Baltimore man has been charged in the kidnapping and rape of a Westminster woman in January, court documents show. Olistean Alexander Jones, 21, of the 1900 block of Clifton Ave. was charged Monday with first-degree rape, kidnapping, first-degree sexual offense, first-degree assault and two counts of second-degree assault. He was being held without bail in Carroll County Detention Center in Westminster. According to court documents, four men took a woman from a home on Liberty Street in Westminster and forced her into the trunk of a car Jan. 11. After driving the woman to an apartment in the 300 block of E. Main St., another man known to her only as "Tony" raped her, court documents show.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- A wave of kidnappings has hit Rio de Janeiro, turning one of the world's crime capitals into an even more dangerous city, especially if you can afford to pay multimillion-dollar ransoms.Police say there have been more than two dozen kidnappings this year, and news reports put the figure at nearly twice that number. In the past decade, the city averaged only a few abductions a year."There is no question that kidnapping is on the rise in Rio," said Detective Elson Campello, one of four directors of the anti-kidnapping squad in Rio, already the city with the world's fourth-highest homicide rate.