LOS ANGELES — Three suspects were charged Tuesday with kidnapping two people from a Los Angeles home and holding one of them naked in a bathtub for 30 hours while demanding the other pay a $10,000 ransom, prosecutors said.
Keith Andre Stewart, Johntae Jones and Amber Neal were charged with kidnapping, assault with a firearm and other offense in connection with the May 3 incident. It was not immediately clear whether they had attorneys who could comment on the allegations
Neal’s arrest at gunpoint by Los Angeles police officers on Monday was captured on video by a bystander and had been viewed more than 2.4 million times on Twitter. It wasn’t immediately known when the others were taken into custody.
Prosecutors allege the trio went to Daisy McCrackin’s home in South Los Angeles on May 3, where they say Stewart pistol-whipped a man who was in the home, Joseph Capone. The three then placed bags over the two victims’ heads and drove them several miles to Jones’ home in Compton, prosecutors said.
Once they were at Jones’ home, the suspects forced Capone to strip naked and then held him in a bathtub for 30 hours without food, prosecutors allege.
Investigators said Jones and Neal then took McCrackin’s car and drove her to several different banks while demanding she pay $10,000 for Capone’s release. Eventually she was forced to write a $10,000 check to Neal, prosecutors said.
The next day, they brought McCrackin — an actress who has appeared in several films including the horror flick Halloween: Resurrection — back to her home, where she escaped from them and called police, authorities said.
Jones and Neil were being held on $1 million each and Steward was being held on more than $2 million bail, according to prosecutors. If convicted, they each potentially face sentences of up to life in prison.
