2 GIRLS RESCUED; KIDNAPPER KILLED SUSPECT REFUSES TO SURRENDER.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick, Ryan Oliver and Greg Botonis Staff Writers

QUARTZ HILL - Twelve hours after they were kidnapped at gunpoint from a lover's lane, two teenage girls were rescued Thursday by sheriff's deputies who shot and killed their abductor.

Kern County Sheriff Carl Sparks said the kidnapper - a fugitive ex-convict sought on rape charges - had raped the girls and was just minutes away from killing them in a remote location in the high desert when deputies closed in.

``He was hunting for a place to kill 'em and bury 'em,'' Sparks said on CNN's ``Larry King Live'' program.

``He already raped them and there wasn't anything left to do. When he saw the three helicopters in the air he said 'I gotta get rid of these girls' and he certainly wasn't going to drop them at the post office.''

The suspect showed a gun when two deputies arrived and said, ``No way, no way.'' The deputies shot him seven times.

The girls - Tamara Brooks, 16, an Antelope Valley High School track star and student government officer, and Jacqueline Marris, 17, a cheerleader at Highland High School in Palmdale - were identified before authorities learned they had been sexually assaulted. They were being examined by doctors in Bakersfield after their ordeal.

Tamara's father, Sam, who talked to reporters outside the Lancaster sheriff's station after the rescue, was grateful his daughter was alive.

``I hope that none of you and no one ever has to go through this,'' he said. ``We just kept the faith, smiled and did what we could.''

Jacqueline's father, Herb, said: ``I couldn't believe it, that she was found alive and OK.''

The kidnappings marked the first use of the state's AMBER Alert for child abductions. That, and heightened public awareness over recent child kidnappings, resulted in residents calling in sightings of the stolen Ford Bronco in which the girls were driven for hundreds of miles - from Quartz Hill, to the San Fernando Valley to Lake Isabella, where law officers spotted the vehicle and began a pursuit.

The girls' kidnapper was identified as Roy Ratliff, 37, an ex-convict from Rosamond, wanted since in October on a warrant accusing him of sexually assaulting and threatening a female relative.

Ratliff's wife, Juanita, said in an anguished voice that Ratliff had been on the run since September, but that he called last week and asked to see his kids - a request she refused.

She also had a message for Thursday's two victims: ``I just want to say to the families: I'm sorry and I'm glad those children are OK.''

Paroled in July 2001 after seven years in prison for burglary and drug offenses, Ratliff had stopped reporting to his parole agent in September, when the rape occurred, officials said.

Ratliff had a criminal record dating back to the 1980s in Nebraska and California that included prison stretches for theft, burglary and possession of methamphetamines.

Sparks said the girls still had duct tape stuck on them when they were rescued from the white Ford Bronco, but were no longer bound by it.

``I don't know that they'll ever be the same; that's hard to say,'' Sparks said. ``They were very thankful that they were alive, but they got a lot of things to work out.''

The teens were abducted at gunpoint about 1:30 a.m. Thursday from a popular lovers-lane area overlooking Lancaster, and the two young men they were with were bound with duct tape, officials said.

The kidnapper left behind a Saturn sedan carjacked two weeks earlier from an elderly couple in their Las Vegas driveway. He forced the girls - who didn't know one another - into one of the young men's SUV.

One of the young men was able to free himself after about 20 minutes and ran approximately a half-mile to a pay phone near a business on 50th Street West in Lancaster, where he called sheriff's deputies.

Hundreds of law enforcement officers in patrol cars and in aircraft fanned out across the area, looking for the 1980 Bronco.

The FBI alerted its offices in San Diego, Fresno, Bakersfield, Phoenix, Ariz., and at the Mexican border, and agents in Las Vegas interviewed the couple whose car was carjacked July 18. They were seeking additional information on the robber and trying to confirm that he was the same man who kidnapped the girls.

The SUV was sighted about eight hours later on Mulholland Drive in the San Fernando Valley, then four hours after that by a Kern County animal control worker on remote Highway 178 east of Lake Isabella.

Two Kern County sheriff's deputies quickly located the SUV on Highway 178 near the farm hamlet of Canebrake and chased it until it went up a dirt road and crashed in a gully. The driver ran.

The deputies rescued the girls and ran after the driver, whom they shot when he refused to surrender, said Kern County sheriff's Cmdr. Chris Davis.

``We would have liked to have taken him alive, but he dictated the course of events,'' Los Angeles County sheriff's Capt. Tom Pigott said.

After their rescue, the girls were taken by ambulance to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, where they were released after being examined Thursday evening. Their families flew to Bakersfield from Lancaster in a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department airplane.

About 8:30 p.m., Tamara, her family members and relatives of Jacqueline returned to Lancaster by plane and hurriedly drove away.

Antelope Valley residents mobilized around the abductions, which were called unprecedented.

``We'd never had anything like this here before, and I've lived here 56 years,'' Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts said.

Quartz Hill Walk-in Medical Clinic employees quickly offered a $25,000 reward, and $10,000 rewards were announced by Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich and Lancaster's mayor.

Dozens of teenagers and the girls' relatives flocked to the Lancaster sheriff's station and Quartz Hills substation, where they waited hours for word of the girls' fate. Their tears of anguish turned into cries of joy when they learned that both girls had been rescued.

During their anxious hours of waiting, Jacqueline's Highland High School classmates printed up and handed out hundreds of fliers around the valley. Other people organized a prayer service for tonight at Lane Park, near the abduction site. The service was canceled when the girls were rescued.

When Highland students ran short of money to pay for 800 copies of a flier at Kinko's, a man standing in line gave them $50. At Donnell Printing in Lancaster, the company printed 500 fliers for free.

``It's just wonderful how everybody came together to help us do this,'' 17-year-old Katelyn Gallagher said.

News of the rescue was announced over the public-address system at the Palmdale Wal-Mart, drawing a collective gasp from shoppers.

Before the abduction, the girls were with boyfriends, one in an SUV, the other in a truck, on top of Quartz Hill mountain, which overlooks the lights of Lancaster.

The kidnapper drove the stolen Saturn up the steep dirt road leading to the overlook. He approached the couple in one vehicle and at gunpoint forced them over to the second vehicle, deputies said.

Eric Joshua Brown, 18, and Frank Melero Jr., 19, were bound with duct tape, which the kidnapper apparently had with him, and he forced the girls into Brown's Bronco.

``He just kept telling her to stay down, keep her head down, don't look at him,'' Brown said. ``He told me he was going to kill me but he didn't want to.''

Before he left, the kidnapper doused the stolen Saturn with gasoline, but didn't set it on fire.

Coming on the heels of the ultimately fatal kidnappings of 5-year-old Samantha Runnion in Orange County and 7-year-old Danielle van Dam in San Diego County, Thursday's double abduction drew wide attention.

News crews broadcast in four languages from outside the Lancaster sheriff's station. Sheriff's deputies and CHP officers volunteered to work for free to help find the kidnapper after their regular shifts ended.

``This is important to deputies. A lot of us have families; a lot of us have kids,'' Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Steve Jausch said.

The AMBER Alert, named for a slain Texas girl who inspired a similar plan in Texas, sent out word of the kidnappings on radio and television bulletins and electronic freeway signs.

CAPTION(S):

6 photos, box, map

Photo:

(1 -- color) Friends and relatives comfort the younger sister of victim Jacqueline Marris before she and another girl were found.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer

(2 -- 3) Paramedics escort Tamara Brooks and Jacqueline Marris to an ambulance, right, as deputies, left, look over the stolen Bronco in which they were kidnapped.

Casey Christe/The Bakersfield Californian

(4 -- color) BROOKS

(5 -- color) MARRIS

(6 -- color) RATLIFF

Box/Map:

TEENS KIDNAPPED