Two suspects arrested in crime spree

Friday, Dec. 4, 1998 | 11:29 a.m.

An accomplice of two suspects arrested Wednesday in Los Angeles in connection with a crime spree that that began in San Francisco and involved kidnappings, assaults, robbery and carjackings may be hiding in Las Vegas.

Authorities say among the victims of the trio may be three women in Las Vegas who were robbed Nov. 23.

Todd Williams, 36, was captured in LA after a police pursuit that ended when the stolen car he was driving crashed into two cars and a utility pole, seriously injuring the suspect.

Police arrested Lisa Johnson, 23, several hours later while burglarizing a car, according to investigators. She reportedly was dropped off in an LA neighborhood shortly before the car chase began.

Officials say they are still looking for a man identified as Joseph O'Neal, who may be in Las Vegas.

The three are believed to be responsible for recent attacks against women from San Francisco to Las Vegas. In separate incidents, women were abducted, with the attackers taking their cars, bank cards and beating them.

Williams was driving a Honda belonging to one of their victims when it crashed, said Officer Jason Lee, a spokesman for the LAPD.

The case unfolded around 2 p.m. Wednesday.

"The officers saw a car that they suspected. They ran the license plates, and it came back with different information than the vehicle it was on," said LAPD Sgt. Blaine Blackstone.

An officer followed the vehicle and saw Williams drop off Johnson, authorities said. When officers attempted to stop the gray Honda that had a license plate registered to a Pontiac, Williams sped away. The chase ended when the car crashed.

Williams was taken to the hospital jail ward at County-USC Medical Center, where he remained in custody Thursday for investigation of evading police and for being an at-large parolee, according to San Bernardino County Sheriff's Detective Lon Jacobs.

The department was involved because the assailants are believed to have attacked a woman from that county.

Four other people sustained minor injuries from the collision and were taken to hospitals for treatment, Lee said.

The gray Honda belonged to Alice Tennyson, a San Francisco woman who authorities say was kidnapped by the assailants last month, LAPD spokesman Officer Don Cox said.

The San Francisco Police Department was also investigating the trio's involvement in Tennyson's abduction. She was found wandering in a Laguna Beach park, and her Honda was missing.

Williams and Johnson will likely be extradited to San Francisco, Lee said. The San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department also wants the two turned over to them.

According to a San Bernardino County arrest warrant, all three suspects face charges of robbery, felonious battery and kidnapping for the purpose of robbery, Jacobs said.

The attacks the trio is believed to be linked to include:

- On Nov. 24, three people allegedly stopped to help a Barstow woman with a flat tire along Interstate 5 south of Primm, Nev., but they robbed her at gunpoint, tied her up and broke her jaw.

- On Nov. 23, three women were accosted and robbed at gunpoint in Las Vegas.

- On Nov. 21, a 36-year-old San Marcos woman was carjacked, pistol-whipped and robbed of $5 at a Denny's parking lot in Escondido. They bound her with duct tape and threw her in the back seat of her car. She was released because she didn't have a bank card, police said.

- On Nov. 17, Tennyson, 58, was grabbed by two men at her office parking lot in San Francisco and kept bound and stuffed in her trunk for two days. Police found her wandering in a Laguna Beach park, about 440 miles from where she was abducted. She was left bound with duct tape to a park bench but was able to free herself.

San Francisco police said earlier the trio was possibly connected with attacks in a Costco parking lots in San Francisco and Berkeley.