Search resumes for missing Southern California teen, sex offender arrested

Search resumes for Calif. teen; sex offender held

SAN DIEGO — Authorities and volunteers widened their search Monday for a 17-year-old girl missing in San Diego County who may have been abducted by a registered sex offender.

Some 1,400 volunteers and more than 100 law enforcement officers failed to find Chelsea King on Sunday.

However, evidence was discovered that led to the arrest of 30-year-old John Albert Gardner of Lake Elsinore, a city some 75 miles to the north, Sheriff William Gore said. He would not elaborate.

King, a straight-A senior at Poway High School, disappeared Thursday after going for a run at Rancho Bernardo Community Park in San Diego, a popular regional park full of running trails.

Her BMW, with her cell phone and iPod inside, were found later that night.

Gore said the search would expand beyond the park.

Gardner was taken into custody at a restaurant in Escondido and was being questioned.

“Specific criminal charges are still being determined,” Gore said.

Investigators also suspect Gardner could be tied to a Dec. 27 assault on a female jogger from Colorado Springs, Gore said.

Gardner’s Riverside County residence was also searched.

He was required to register as a sex offender because of a conviction for lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, the Megan’s Law Web site said.

It was not immediately clear whether Gardner has hired an attorney.

King’s parents pleaded for her return and said the arrest offered them no relief.

“Nothing will change for us until our beautiful daughter, Chelsea King, comes home,” Brent and Kelly King said in a statement released through a family spokeswoman. “We will continue searching for her, and we ask that all of you do the same until she’s back with us.”