Carjack victim changes story

PALMDALE – A Palmdale man, who told detectives he was kidnapped at gunpoint from a city park, taken to a remote location, and then beaten, tied up with his shoelaces, and carjacked, has changed his story.

The man now says he was not abducted from William J. McAdam park, there was no gun involved, and he went willingly to the remote location with his two assailants, according to Lt. Cory Kennedy.

“We re-interviewed him today and brought some facts forward, and that’s when he decided that he would tell us what actually happened,” Kennedy said.

The victim met the two suspects at a Mobile gas station at Four Points (47^th Street East and Avenue T). The men rode in the victim’s car to a secluded area near Mt. Emma Road and Angeles Forest Highway to “party.”

“What they were going to do in terms of their partying, we’re really not going to talk about that,” Kennedy said.

He said once the men reached their destination, the suspects beat the victim, tied him up, and stole his car, which contained his keys, his wallet and his cell phone.

A hiker came across the scene and was not initially suspicious of what he saw, Kennedy said.

“He saw the two suspects coming down, didn’t pay much attention to them because they weren’t running, they weren’t doing anything that really jumped out at him,” Kennedy said. “They got in the car and they drove off, nothing really unusual to our witness.”

Shortly after, the hiker saw the victim coming down the hill and realized something was wrong, Kennedy said.

The victim had an abrasion next to his eye, some blood on his ear, and ligature marks on his wrists,  but his injuries were not serious, Kennedy said.

The hiker called the Palmdale Station for help around 2 p.m., Thursday.  While investigating the crime, detectives realized the man had been lying about being abducted from William J. McAdam park.

“We actually went out to the park and tried to look for cameras, any kind of clues, it just didn’t add up,” Kennedy said.

He speculated the victim may have lied due to embarrassment.

“From our perspective, he’s still a victim of robbery and an assault, and the reason that he was there with them is not necessarily relevant to the crime we’re investigating,” Kennedy said.

Early Friday morning, investigators took the victim back to the Four Points gas station to look for the assailants, but the search was unsuccessful. The two suspects are described as Hispanic males between the ages of 18 and 23.

The stolen vehicle is a Gold 2004 Chevy Cavalier, license plate number 5RXR806.

Kennedy said it is important for the public to know that the crime did not start at William J. McAdam park.

“We wanted the community to know that he was not abducted from a city park, because that would be very very rare,” he said. “That kind of thing does not happen.”

Anyone with information on this incident is asked to call Palmdale Station detectives at 661-272-2400. If you would like to provide information anonymously, you can do so by calling Crimestoppers at 800-222-8477.

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