O.C. girl recants attempted-kidnapping tale

An 11-year-old Aliso Viejo girl who told authorities that a man tried to abduct her at knifepoint made up the story because she was running late for school, officials said Saturday.

The girl, who was not identified, had told Orange County sheriff’s investigators last week that a man with spiky brown hair got out of a banged-up white pickup with blue stripes and held a large kitchen knife to her neck, but she was able to break away.

The accusation unnerved the south Orange County community because her descriptions of the man and truck were “eerily similar” to those in a March 16 incident in Capistrano Beach, said sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino.

Authorities said Saturday they were unsure whether the Aliso Viejo girl based her story on that incident, in which a man approached and chased a girl near Palisades Elementary School.

The Aliso Viejo girl was walking to her bus stop near Glenhurst and Aliso Creek Road about 9 a.m. Thursday when she realized she had forgotten her lunch, Amormino said.

She went back to her house to retrieve it and missed the school bus. The girl then told a neighbor and her mother that a man had tried to abduct her.

As sheriff’s deputies pored through hundreds of tips and reinterviewed neighbors, the sixth-grader’s story began to crumble, Amormino said.

That there were no witnesses on busy Aliso Creek Road raised questions. And officials at the girl’s school, Don Juan Avila Middle School, shared information with investigators that questioned the girl’s credibility, he said.

When authorities talked to the girl again, “she dramatically changed her story,” Amormino said. “No man jumped out of a car, no man tried to harm her.”

The girl will not be prosecuted because of her age.

*

[email protected]