Kidnap Suspect Surrenders in Montana

April 12, 2001 -- A suspected kidnapper who has been eluding police for two months has surrendered peacefully, and the girl he allegedly abducted last week is safe.

Anthony Zappa, 29, spent the night holed up in a cabin at picturesque Flathead Lake, Mont., as his alleged victim — 17-year-old high school honor student Anne Sluti — negotiated with police.

"She did an outstanding job," Mike Sargeant of the Lake County Sheriff's Office told Good Morning America.

Sluti was allegedly abducted from a mall in Kearney, Neb., on Friday by Zappa, who was already the subject of a five-state manhunt.

Brave Teen Negotiates Surrender

Sargeant said a concerned citizen called police Wednesday afternoon, telling of "suspicious activity" at the summer cabin. When police arrived, they found Zappa's vehicle parked nearby, and surrounded the place.

But when police made contact, it was not with the alleged criminal, but the victim.

"My initial contact and for most of the duration was with Anne," Sargeant said. "She was very calm and cool and collected."

Zappa would not speak to police until the very end, when he wanted assurances that he would be safe.

"He wanted to talk to me," Sargeant said. "He was a little stressed about coming out... [I] assured him that we wanted this incident to end peacefully ... which it did."

He said Zappa is in the county jail, while Sluti is being examined at a local hospital. He said she appeared to be doing fine.

"She's doing very well. She was very relieved at being freed," he said.

The FBI is on the way to question Zappa, he added.

A Trail of Phone Calls

Sluti, a 5-foot-3 pole-vaulter on her school's track team, called her parents and a friend after her disappearance.

She told her parents she was all right, but her mother said she could feel that someone was close by and that the girl was very troubled.

"She said that she was OK, that she wasn't hurt," Elaine Sluti said on Good Morning America. "It was very apparent that someone was with her, making sure that she didn't say where she was. And she actually sounded very strong. There did not seem to be an apparent great deal of fear, but there was obvious stress in her voice."

Once, she managed to dial 911, but was cut off before she could give her location.

Police traced the call to a cabin in Livingston, Mont., but when they arrived it was deserted.

Few Pieces Fit This Puzzle

Zappa is wanted in five states — Louisiana, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota — on suspicion of car theft, assault, illegal possession of guns and other charges.

However, law enforcement officials say a kidnapping does not fit his profile.

"There are many things in this case that I can't explain," said FBI Special Agent James Bogner, who is handling the manhunt.

However, evidence suggests Zappa took the girl. Witnesses said a man who matched the suspect's description hit a girl who looked like Sluti over the head and dragged her into a Chevy Suburban in the parking lot of the mall Friday evening.

A few of Sluti's belongings were found nearby, and when Montana police got to the cabin where the 911 call originated, they found the Suburban that was taken in Nebraska, strengthening their belief that Zappa grabbed her.

Police found the Suburban abandoned 30 miles from a cabin, and a Toyota Tercel was reported stolen nearby. There were also reports of sightings of the two in the area, which borders Yellowstone Park.

"I'm more interested in getting her back than anything else in this world," Kearney police chief Don Lynch said Wednesday on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

Trail of the Kidnapper

When the teen left home for the local mall on Friday, the last thing she told her parents was, "If I get any phone calls, tell my friends I'll be home shortly."

Anne's parents, Donald and Elaine Sluti, went public soon after she went missing — pleading with the kidnapper to release their daughter.

"We will do anything to have Anne home again," Elaine Sluti said after her daughter was abducted on Good Morning America. "Please let Anne go."

Several witnesses said they saw a man who looked like Zappa loitering in the Kearney mall parking lot before the abduction of Sluti.

The massive Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., was shut down last month after it was reported that someone matching Zappa's description was there, but a search of the mall came up empty.

Police in Kearney said that a number of license plates were reported stolen from the mall parking lot Friday. A woman also said that a man matching Zappa's description offered to help her change a tire on her car that had been slashed, but he made her uncomfortable and when she told him someone was coming to help her, he disappeared.

Witnesses told police that the man who slashed the car's tire was driving a Suburban that matched the one found in Montana.

Suspicion Grows

The Des Moines Register reported on Wednesday that police in Mason City, Iowa, say that similarities between the kidnapping of Sluti and the abduction of a TV anchorwoman in 1995 have led them to believe Zappa may have been responsible for that crime as well.

Capt. Mike Halverson said Zappa, who is also known as Anthony Steven Wright and pleaded guilty to a string of burglaries in Mason City in January 1995, would have been a suspect in the anchorwoman's disappearance, but authorities believed he was in jail at the time.

According to the paper, Mason City police went back and checked court records after learning of the details of Sluti's abduction, and found that Zappa was not in jail when the anchorwoman, Jodi Huisentruit, was abducted.

Like Sluti, Huisentruit disappeared in what police believe was a spur-of-the-moment kidnapping, and the purse and personal belongings of both were strewn near the site where they were last seen.