Teen Girl Fabricated Willowbrook Attempted Kidnapping, Deputies Say

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – A 14-year-old girl fabricated a story about an attempted kidnapping in Willowbrook earlier this week, authorities announced Thursday.

The girl in question reported that a man had attempted to pull her into an apartment building while she was walking to the train to go to school at about 6:20 a.m. near 120th Street and Wilmington Avenue.

"He came out of nowhere and started walking, and that's when he started harassing me and tried to get me to go somewhere," she told CBS2 in an interview Tuesday night. "I told him, 'no, no,' and he grabbed me from the wrist right here at first and dragged me to like a little corner area, but I pushed away and ran."

The girl notified her mother, who came to the purported crime scene and snapped photos of the alleged suspect, which were later released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

On Thursday, the sheriff's department reported that it identified and detained a 31-year-old man in connection with the alleged incident. However, after interviewing both the suspect and victim, investigators found several discrepancies in the teen's story.

She later confessed to fabricating it.

"The female later admitted to detectives she fabricated the entire event and conceded the male never attempted to kidnap her," the sheriff's department wrote in a news release.

The man cooperated with police and was released from custody without charges.