ABDUCTED TOT FOUND; TRUCKER SPOTS BOY IN VEHICLE.

Byline: Stacy Brown Daily News Staff Writer

A trucker rescued a kidnapped 2-year-old boy early Tuesday in Castaic after spotting the toddler sobbing and shaking and strapped in a car seat, which was propped on the dirt shoulder of Interstate 5 in the icy pre-dawn chill.

Jonathan Thomas of Long Beach had been abandoned on the side of the road by the man accused of stealing his mother's car outside a Compton post office, California Highway Patrol officers said.

Jonathan, who a few hours later hammed it up for reporters, was checked at a hospital before being reunited with his mother.

``He was born on my birthday, so he was a birthday present and now he's my Christmas present. I will never let him out of my sight again,'' said his mother, Kindra Hughes.

Investigators believe Jonathan sat in the cold for at least an hour, just a few feet from busy traffic lanes, before Visalia trucker Miguel Gutierrez spotted him, CHP Officer Rick Miler said. Gutierrez called the CHP station in Valencia about 6:50 a.m.

``He pulled over after spotting the child. He said he thought it was a doll. But it was not,'' Miler said.

``I thought somebody had played a terrible trick,'' Gutierrez told The Associated Press. ``The child stopped crying and lifted up his hand towards me. I asked what happened, but he did not speak.''

The trucker, hauling a load of flour for Fleet Express of Arcadia, said he was ascending the northbound grade when he saw what appeared to be a toy or sleeping bag along the road.

``I am always looking at the sides, because people are always throwing things. It was a little dark, but when I saw the car seat and child I stopped quickly,'' Gutierrez said in Spanish.

Authorities said Jonathan and his 18-year-old cousin, Reggie Blackwell of Sacramento, were riding with Hughes when she stopped at a post office near Los Angeles International Airport around 6 p.m. Monday.

Hughes went to mail a letter and returned to find her car, her son and Blackwell missing.

``I looked everywhere, I called 911 and went to the Airport Police,'' Hughes said, fighting back tears.

CHP Officer Doug Sweeney said Blackwell apparently had dropped the toddler off on the freeway and headed toward Bakersfield.

``He apparently tried to check into a hotel there without any money and became upset and smashed a few windows,'' Miler said.

When Kern County sheriff's deputies arrested Blackwell near Bakersfield, the man told them he had killed a baby in Newhall, Miler said. Late Tuesday, Blackwell faced transfer from Kern County to Los Angeles for questioning.

Investigators said deputies placed a call to the Newhall CHP to investigate the claim. ``At about 6:50 (a.m.), we were called about (Jonathan) and we put two and two together and realized this is what Blackwell was talking about,'' Miler said.

Officers then were able to trace phone numbers found in the child's pockets to a cellular phone belonging to his grandmother, Dorothy Hughes.

Miler said the little boy, who weighs about 30 pounds, was taken to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital and treated for exposure and released.

``It was an absolute miracle, the boy was shaking and his lower extremities, his face and hands were all exposed and cold,'' Miler said.

CHP investigator Dave Pokorny said it was unclear how long the boy had been on the freeway and said also with overnight temperatures near freezing, his survival was nothing short of a miracle.

``We do know he was out there for more than an hour at the least. He was crying and cold and wet and Officer (Vicki) Callier got him some clothes,'' Miler said.

Accompanied by her parents, the toddler's mother tearfully hugged her little boy, who had become smitten with microphones offered by reporters.

Hughes had been up all night worried about her child.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color--ran in SAC Edition only) Highway Patrol Officer Rick Miller hands Jonathan Thomas over to his mother, Kindra Hughes.

(2) Jonathan Thomas and Officer Rick Miler speak to the press Tuesday on the boy turned up Tuesday.

Terri Thuente/Daily News