TWO EARN REWARD FOR TIPS LEADING TO RESCUE OF KIDNAPPED TEENS.

Byline: Troy Anderson Staff Writer

Los Angeles County supervisors on Tuesday approved $5,000 rewards for a Kern County animal control officer and a Caltrans worker who helped direct deputies last August to two kidnapped Antelope Valley teens.

Animal control officer Bonnie Hernandez had heard about the kidnapping of Tamara Brooks and Jacqueline Marris over a police scanner and Caltrans worker Milton Walters had heard radio reports in what was California's first use of the Amber Alert system for child abductions.

``Mr. Walters and Ms. Hernandez provided the crucial information - the direction of travel, a time line and the actual location of the vehicle - that led to ... the rescue of the two girls,'' county executive officer Violet Varona-Lukens told the board.

Six people had applied for the $10,000 reward, which was announced by Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich within hours of the Aug. 1 kidnapping. But a panel of county officials that reviewed the claims decided that only Walters and Hernandez deserved the reward.

The pair had been honored publicly last August by Kern County officials and the girls' families and friends.

The girls were kidnapped from a Quartz Hill teen hangout by 37-year-old Roy Ratliff, a fugitive ex-convict from Rosamond, who drove up in a stolen car and fled with the girls in a Ford Bronco belonging to one of the girl's friends, according to county documents.

An Amber Alert broadcast the names of the teenagers, the license plate number and description of the vehicle. The alert resulted in people 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.

Walters, who had repeatedly heard the Amber Alert broadcast over a Los Angeles radio station, was working with a crew beside Highway 178 when the Bronco passed by at 10:55 a.m. Walters made eye contact with the driver, contacted the California Highway Patrol and told them where he had seen the Bronco.

Hernandez first heard about the kidnapping at 6:45 a.m. while listening to a personal police scanner. At 11:15 a.m., she heard that the CHP needed assistance from Kern County sheriff's deputies on Highway 178. Hernandez was driving on the highway when she spotted the Bronco on a dirt road heading into a thickly wooded area. She drove on to the community of Inyokern to advise deputies of the Bronco's location.

Two Kern County sheriff's deputies found the white Bronco on a dirt road in the area where Hernandez had seen it. The deputies boxed in the SUV and ordered Ratliff to surrender, but he shot at them and was killed in a gunfight, officials said. The girls were rescued from the Bronco's rear seat.