Tip Foils Abduction of Girl, 3

TUSTIN — A 3-year-old girl was returned safely to her mother after being abducted briefly early Sunday from their Nisson Road apartment, police said.

The bizarre incident played out when a neighbor notified 20-year-old Laura Morgan at about 1:40 a.m. Sunday that an unknown man was seen carrying her child, Elizabeth Morgan, within the apartment complex, said Tustin Police Sgt. David Kreyling.

Morgan and her boyfriend, 32-year-old Chris Thompson, chased the man, who put the girl down unharmed and fought briefly with Thompson before escaping, Kreyling said.

The man had apparently reached in a bedroom window of the single-story apartment and snatched Elizabeth while her mother and Thompson slept, Kreyling said.

No one was hurt although the two men “slugged it out a little bit,” Kreyling said.

The suspect was described as white, between 40 and 45 years old, about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. He fled in a brown, 1980s vintage four-door compact car.

Police are investigating the incident as a kidnaping, and Morgan’s ex-husband has been initially ruled out as a suspect, Kreyling said.

“Investigators say everything is on the up-and-up with the ex-husband,” Kreyling said. “It’s strange. Throughout the U.S. we seem to be getting more and more of these things. . . . This ended in a nice way for a change.”