WHEATLAND – As soon as they got the call Sunday morning that a 16-year-old girl with a "diminished mental capacity" had vanished, Wheatland police were operating against time.
Officers from here to the Oregon border joined in the hunt, working in the early stages with little more than the first name of a man they suspected may have taken the girl.
In the end, police said, it was a piece of modern communication as common these days as e-mails and phone calls that proved to be the difference.
"In this situation," Wheatland Police Chief Dan Boon said, "we were very, very lucky."
About 90 minutes after the girl went missing, she sent a text message to a friend indicating she had made the mistake of getting into the wrong car with the wrong man, police said.
That man – David Anthony Faboo – met the girl on the Internet and communicated with her on more than one Web site, including the chat room of the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft, according to police and a friend of Faboo's.
The 16-year-old's friend, whom police would not identify, continued to communicate with the girl for more than three hours. He got her to describe the white pickup truck she was riding in, and that piece of information – combined with some biographical details taken from chat-room exchanges and conversations the girl had with her cousin – helped police in Oregon come up with Faboo's full name and the make and model of his truck, Boon said.
Police used the girl's cell-phone provider to help track her location, police said. The communications continued throughout the pickup truck's journey into Oregon, and Boon said the girl was composing a text message as officers with the Oregon State Police pulled over Faboo's truck near mile marker 59 on Interstate 5 near Grants Pass, Ore., about five hours after the girl was reported missing.
"(The girl's friend) was one of the key components of this investigation, and he really allowed us to bring this to a successful conclusion," Boon said.
Faboo, a resident of Hillsboro, Ore., whose 38th birthday is today, was taken into custody without incident and is being held in Jackson County jail in Oregon. The FBI is taking charge of the investigation because Faboo is suspected of taking the girl across state lines, officials said.
Boon said he faces an arrest warrant in California on suspicion of kidnapping with an intent to commit rape and that investigators "strongly believe that's exactly what he would have done."
Reports of the alleged abduction shook some corners of Wheatland, where the last big news story in town circled around a ban on hugging at the high school.
"If you're going to make the news, you'd rather it be something like that," said Diana Arteaga, who has lived in the Yuba County town for 14 years and works at Wheatland Books. "When something happens in your small town, it's kind of scary."
Robin Taylor, a friend of Faboo's who said she allowed him to stay in her Arden-area home for about six months in 2003 and 2004, said she spoke with the suspect at least twice in recent weeks and that "he thought (the 16-year-old) was a grown woman."
Taylor said Faboo told her the girl "represented herself as a grown woman in an abusive relationship" and that Faboo felt compelled to help her.
"He is being painted as an online predator, and I know that is not true," Taylor said.
Boon said he found it "hard to believe" Faboo thought the girl was an adult and that the explanation of trying to save a girl from an abusive situation "would be a typical response that a pedophile might provide."
The chief said the incident should serve as caution to all parents.
"We can't emphasize enough that parents really be aware where their child is spending time on the Internet," he said. "If you're not, this kind of thing can happen."
Call The Bee's Ryan Lillis, (916) 321-1085. Bee researcher Sheila A. Kern contributed to this report.
