Parents' Plea for Return of Kidnapped Girl

April 11, 2001 -- When 17-year-old Anne Sluti 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."

Five days later, her parents are still waiting and hoping to see her again.

Police believe the honor student was kidnapped outside the mall in Kearney, Neb., by a man wanted in several states on theft, assault and gun possession charges, and they think the two could now be as far away as Montana.

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

Sluti, a 5-foot-3 pole vaulter on her high school track team, has called her parents and a friend since her disappearance, and once she managed to call 911 in Montana, but before she could give her location she was cut off. Police traced the call to a cabin inLivingston, Mont., but when they arrived it was deserted.

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."

A Jackrabbit

Authorities say the lead suspect in the kidnapping is Anthony Zappa, a 29-year-old already wanted in five states — Louisiana, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin and Minnesota.

He has developed a reputation for slipping through the fingers of police in a frustrating two-month manhunt.

"I've been calling him a jackrabbit," Floyd County, Iowa, Sheriff Rick Lynch told The Associated Press.

The FBI and local police forces have been tracing the fugitive Zappa by a trail of stolen cars across the northern Great Plains, from Wisconsin to Montana, but the apparent abduction of the girl has them puzzled.

The fugitive's brother-in-law said it wouldn't make any sense for Zappa to kidnap the girl, and police don't argue.

"Well, 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.

Hoping Someone Will Come Forward

Anne's parents, Donald and Elaine Sluti, have gone public — pleading with the kidnapper to release their daughter.

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

Authorities believe that the girl has not been seriously hurt, but Bogner said this morning that there were no new developments since the two were spotted on Sunday.

"We're still checking reports of possible sightings, we're still hopeful that someone will come forward having spotted both these individuals, Anne Sluti, also Anthony Zappa, the vehicle they may be in and report them to law enforcement," Bogner said.

Several witnesses said they saw a man who looked like Zappa loitering in the Kearney mall parking lot before the abduction of Sluti, and police involved in the manhunt since it began say he has been spotted around malls before.

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.

Suspicion Grows

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.

The Des Moines Register reported today 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.