Huntington Beach, California: Police in California said on Wednesday night there was “no evidence” supporting the reported story that a San Francisco Bay Area woman was kidnapped for ransom earlier this week before inexplicably reappearing alone and unharmed.
“There is no evidence to support the claims that this was a stranger abduction or an abduction at all,” the Vallejo Police Department said in a message on its Facebook page in regard to the case of 30-year-old Denise Huskins.
“Given the facts that have been presented thus far, this event appears to be an orchestrated event and not a crime,” it added.
On Wednesday, Huskins turned up in her coastal hometown of Huntington Beach, 56km south of Los Angeles, but the circumstances of her return, as well as her disappearance, remained murky, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.
Huskins was reported by her boyfriend on Monday afternoon to have been forcibly abducted hours earlier from his home in the San Francisco Bay Area city of Vallejo, sparking an intense search by local law enforcement and the FBI, police said on Tuesday.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported she called her father on Wednesday morning, leaving a voice mail that she had just been dropped off at his Huntington Beach apartment. The father, who had travelled north to Vallejo after the reported abduction, then called police, the newspaper said.
Huntington Beach police said they encountered Huskins at the apartment and interviewed her there for two hours before turning her over to relatives, who took her away to an undisclosed location.
Vallejo police said that Huskins initially seemed to be cooperating with the investigation, but authorities lost contact with her after arranging for her travel north. The statement said Huskins has since retained an attorney.
Police would request state or federal charges if it determines that Huskins broke the law, the statement said.
Huskins had recently moved to Vallejo and was working as a physical therapist, according to her Facebook account. Neighbours told the Chronicle she had been living with her boyfriend.
