Posted on Wed, Jul. 24, 2002 Erica is her own hero 7-year-old kidnap victim escapes by chewing through the tape binding her

IN THE END, little Erica Pratt - an innocent pawn in a brutal drug war - saved herself.

Kidnapped and locked alone in the dark, squalid basement of a rowhouse in Logan under construction, the resourceful 7-year-old last night did what no one else could do.

Free herself.

For nearly 24 hours, Erica had been locked in the house on Loudon Street near 12th as police desperately searched the city for her.

Her kidnappers, who were still at large last night, had snatched her, kicking and screaming, from a sidewalk in Southwest Philadelphia about 9:30 p.m. Monday. They locked her in the basement of the Logan house, bound at the wrists and ankles with duct tape, police said.

Her kidnappers also wrapped the tape around the little girl's head, covering her eyes and mouth.

They left a bag of potato chips and a container of juice, but nothing else.

There was no light in the basement, and no air conditioning.

"You wouldn't keep a dog like that," said Lt. Michael Chitwood. "It was absolute squalor."

Erica gnawed and clawed at the tape. And somehow, shortly before 8 p.m., she was able to get free of the tape, and climb the basement steps. She broke out a panel of the basement door, and made her way across the living room to the front door.

It was locked. How was she going to get out?

There was the front double window. Erica pushed the blinds aside, broke out the window, and pushed the screen out.

And then she began calling for help.

Several kids passing by on bikes heard her cries, and rushed up onto the dilapidated porch and pulled her out.

She was safe.

One of her rescuers, a girl, got on her bike and flagged down a patrol car that was part of the Safe Street program.

The officers in the car, Andrew Skaziak and Michael Harvey, knew about the kidnapping.

"I said, this could be the little girl from Southwest Philly who got kidnapped," said Harvey.

As soon as Erica told the officers her name, said Harvey, "I knew who she was."

Erica had some marks on her face from where she had been bound, but otherwise seemed to be all right.

The officers put her in the back of their patrol car, and Skaziak gave the little girl his lunch - a chicken sandwich and a bag of pretzels.

"She was very calm for a girl who had just gone through a thing like that," said Harvey. "She was tremendously calm. She's a tough little girl."

With some leftover duct tape still clinging to her, Erica was taken to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to be checked out, and released shortly after 11 p.m. Other than an eye abrasion, apparently from the tape, she didn't appear to be hurt, police said.

"She amazes me," said Chief Inspector Robert Davis. "That girl, 7 years old, she actually gnawed her way out of that duct tape."

Asked how Erica was doing, Davis said, "She's steady, she's tired, she's a little bit of a thing, a skinny thing, and she's tired out.

"What a strong little girl she is," he said.

Davis said the little girl did not know her kidnappers.

Police held a press conference late yesterday afternoon to ask for the public's help in finding two men they wanted to question about the kidnapping, James Burns, 29, and Edward Johnson, 23, both of the Mantua section of West Philadelphia.

Last night, Davis said the two men were considered suspects in the kidnapping.

According to sources, Erica was shown photos of the two, and identified one of them as one of her abductors.

Late last night, shortly after she returned home, Erica waved and smiled to television cameras from her front porch.

"I'm very happy that my daughter's been found," Erica's mother, Serena Gillis, said earlier. "My daughter's coming home."

After her escape, Erica told investigators what the kidnappers had said - that if they didn't get $150, she'd never see her grandmother again.

Erica's kidnappers had actually demanded $150,000. But though on the surface the kidnapping was about money, the root of the crime was almost certainly drugs, law enforcement sources say.

More specifically, a war between two vicious drug gangs in West Philadelphia.

It was no coincidence, law enforcement sources say, that one of those gangs happens to be run by Erica's father and uncle.

Or that the two suspects in the kidnapping happen to be affiliated with the other side.

In the past, drug dealers would pump bullets into each other.

Now, apparently, they kidnap each other's children.

"I don't care if these knuckleheads kill each other," said one investigator. "But not the kids. The kids are innocent hearts."

And the kidnapping may not have been the only crime that night connected to the drug war. Just a few hours after Erica was snatched, another member of her father's and uncle's gang met a brutal end, the sources said. He was shot to death and run over, and some of his fingers were hacked off.

The kidnapping itself happened quickly. Two men drove up to the house on Kingsessing Avenue near 60th where Erica lives with her grandmother.

She was just coming home from a nearby block party with a friend, a 5-year-old girl.

One of the men - an overweight guy in a white T-shirt, police said - called Erica's name, then picked her up and dragged her into the car. She was kicking and screaming, but it was no use. The car sped off.

"The man took her!" the other girl screamed. "The man took her! The man took Erica!"

Twenty minutes later, the grandmother, Barbara Pratt, got the first of six calls from the kidnappers. Pay us $150,000, they said, or the girl will be killed.

Both the police and the FBI quickly got involved.

Investigators were trying to determine whether there was a connection between the ransom demand of $150,000 and the rumor that the family was due to collect a $150,000 life-insurance benefit on an uncle of Erica's who had been murdered.

The family has denied getting such a settlement, according to law enforcement sources.

Despite the ransom request, it didn't take long for investigators to suspect that little Erica might have been an innocent victim of the West Philadelphia drug wars. The family connection was just too strong.

The uncle, Joseph Pratt, was murdered in March. At the time, he controlled one of the drug gangs, law enforcement sources said. Since then, her father, Eric Pratt, and another uncle, rapper Derrick Pratt, have stepped in to fill the leadership void, the sources said.

Investigators fear the violence will only increase.

"It's a fight over turf in West and Southwest Philadelphia," said one law enforcement source. "The biggest thing is there's a power vacuum and the major players are being knocked off.

"There's a lot of movement and it's going to end in a gun battle," the source said.

The long-standing war is being fought over turf at 38th and Mount Vernon, controlled by the Pratt faction, and 34th and Wallace, most recently run by Johnny Harris, according to the source.

Harris is facing trial for allegedly murdering Leon "Boo Burger" Bryant, 24, Joseph Pratt's right-hand man, last September.

The two drug corners "are menaces," said C.B. Kimmins, a long-time anti-drug activist in Mantua. "There's a lot of vehicle and foot traffic. They find their way off the Schuylkill Expressway and onto these corners."

-- Anonymous, July 24, 2002

Answers

YOU GO GIRL!!!!! I am so glad she is ok and back with her mom.

-- Anonymous, July 25, 2002