13-Year-Old Texas Girl Kidnapped, Rescued With ‘Help Me’ Sign

It has been a full year, since on July 6, 2023, a 13-year-old girl walking along a street in San Antonio, Texas was kidnapped by Steven Robert Sablan, a 62-year-old man from Cleburne, Texas.

The girl left her home to walk to a bus stop without telling her parents because she had plans to visit a friend who moved to Australia a year earlier, prosecutors revealed.

According to the indictment and affidavit, Sablan drove up to her and raised a black handgun to his side and ordered the girl to get into his gray Nissan Sentra.

“If you don’t get in the car with me, I am going to hurt you.”

Court documents state that he began driving and told the girl he could take her to a cruise ship to see her friend in Australia, but “you have to do something for me first.”

He then sexually assaulted her and continued to rape her while driving from Texas to California.

On July 9, Sablan parked his vehicle in Long Beach, California. He told her to change clothes in the car and then took her clothes into a laundromat while the girl remained in the car. While her attacker was preoccupied, she wrote “help me” on a piece of scrap paper in an attempt to catch someone’s attention.

A passerby saw the girl and sign and called the Long Beach Police Department, who arrived to find Sablan outside the vehicle. Authorities said that the victim mouthed “help” from inside to them.

After running his car’s license plate, officers learned that Sablan was wanted on a burglary charge in Fort Worth, Texas, and considered armed and dangerous. He also had prior convictions for robbery and drug possession.

Sablan confessed to abducting the victim and driving her nearly 1,400 miles to California.

Later, Sablan pleaded guilty only to the kidnapping charge in a plea deal and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He also agreed to register as a sex offender.

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