A 13-year-old girl was kidnapped from Texas and rescued earlier this month in southern California after she was able to make and show a bystander a sign that said “help me.”
The Long Beach Police Department shared that on July 9 at 10:19 a.m., police responded to a gas station and found the girl, who has not been identified, looking “visibly emotional and distressed.”
The officers were called to the area by a stranger who noticed the girl holding a sign that read “help me” in red letters as the car sat parked on the street, according to the police report.
While helping the girl, police also arrested a male suspect at the scene, 61-year-old Steven Robert Sablan, NBC Los Angeles reported. Sablan, a resident of Cleburne, Texas, was in a Laundromat when the girl was spotted by the bystander who called the cops.
Investigators shared that they eventually discovered the girl was approached by Sablan at a bus stop in San Antonio and that he forced her into his gray Nissan Sentra at knifepoint.
Court documents cited by the US Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, shared that Sablan threatened the girl if he didn’t come with her.
“‘If you don’t get in the car with me, I am going to hurt you,’” he allegedly told the girl.
On the drive to California, the girl allegedly told the man she had a friend in Australia, and he said that he would put her on a cruise ship to visit the friend if she did “something for him first.”
Investigators shared that on the three-day drive to California from Texas, the man raped the girl on multiple occasions.
On Thursday, a federal grand jury indicted Sablan on one count of kidnapping and one count of transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.
The 13-year-old, who was listed as a runaway, has now been placed in the custody of the Department of Child and Family Services.
Sablan’s arrangement has been set for July 31.
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