Girl: We Tried to Kill Kidnapper

L O S   A N G E L E S, Aug. 2 -- The two teenage girls kidnapped from a lovers' lane outside Los Angeles tried to kill their captor, one of the victims said in a television interview today.

"We got this plan, we were gonna try to kill him," 17-year-old Jacqueline Marris, told KABC-TV in Los Angeles, recalling the harrowing 12-hour ordeal she and a 16-year-old girl endured.

The girls are recovering after being rescued from the wanted rapist who held them captive for hours Thursday and was apparently planning to kill them when police moved in.

Marris added that she and the other captive girl planned their attack on ex-convict Roy Ratliff as he slept, after they noticed a knife and a whiskey bottle in the car.

Marris said she tried to stab Ratliff in the throat with the knife while the other girl hit him in the head with a whiskey bottle. But he woke up, was able to grab his gun, and regained control of the situation.

Saved in the Nick of Time

The girls were later pulled clear of a vehicle driven by Ratliff as police fired multiple shots into the man, who refused to surrender after being cornered in a remote area north of Los Angeles, authorities said.

One police official said Ratliff had raped the girls and that he believed the man was just minutes away from killing them when authorities closed in on him where he was apparently trying to hide the vehicle.

Ratliff, 37, who was already wanted on a warrant for a rape charge, was suspected of a carjacking in Nevada and was out of prison on parole for drug charges, and had no intention of going back to jail, police said.

Marris added that Ratliff drove them around for hours and seemed very familiar with the area. "He knew every single spot, every secluded area, every single dirt road," she said.

"He already hurt the girls," Kern County Sheriff Carl Sparks said at a news conference today. "There wasn't anything else to do there. He went to a remote area where he was going to be trapped. He saw the helicopters. He knew what they were. He was a 'two-striker.' He had to get rid of the girls."

When police surrounded the Bronco, Ratliff was still not ready to give up, Marris said. "He said something like 'no way. I got the girls here,' and he grabbed his gun."