METRO NEWS : Links Sought in Killing, Abduction

Police said Monday that they are investigating a possible connection between the two kidnappings that occurred over the weekend in the northeast San Fernando Valley, including one that ended in a brutal killing.

“We are exploring all possibilities at this point,” said San Fernando Police Lt. Dan Peavy, whose department was working with Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies to investigate the killing of Juan Adolfo Herrera, a father of four and a sometime actor who operated a San Fernando boot store. “There are some similarities.”

Peavy declined to elaborate, except to note that abductions are relatively uncommon.

“There’s the possibility that drugs are involved,” added Lt. Rick Papke of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division, which investigated the second kidnapping, of a Pacoima man. “There were also similar methods of kidnapping.”

Authorities said they do not know of a motive for either abduction, the first of which occurred late Friday when three armed men kidnapped Juan Carlos Torres, 23, from his Pacoima home and led police on a chase that ended in a crash, the arrest of two suspects and a search for the third. Torres was treated and released from a local hospital Saturday.

In the second case, Herrera, 47, of Santa Clarita, was kidnapped Saturday from his shop, El Rodeo Boots, in the 1000 block of Maclay Avenue.

Shortly after 2:30 p.m. Sunday, sheriff’s investigators found Herrera’s van, a 1988 purple Chevrolet with the words “Rodeo Boots” painted on the doors, at a shopping center at Rinaldi Street and Laurel Canyon Boulevard in Mission Hills.

On Monday afternoon, a spokesman with the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said family members had identified a body found in the van as that of Herrera. An autopsy will be conducted today or Wednesday, authorities said.

Juan Herrera was also an actor, appearing in the 1996 Spanish-language action movie “La Mafia de Durango.”

Police said they have no descriptions of possible suspects in the Herrera case or of the third suspect in the Torres case.

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Times staff writer David Colker contributed to this story.