By Tove Tupper & Associated Press
 
March 3, 2009
 
YREKA, Ca. - Yreka police are holding a man on suspicion of kidnapping and sexually molesting a 3-year-old girl.
 
22-year-old Kody Lee Kaplon of Hornbrook is under arrest for the abduction of Francis Ann Collins. Kaplon is facing multiple charges, including kidnapping, attempted murder, false imprisonment, taking or holding a child without right of custody, willful cruelty to a child, committing a sexual crime against a child, burglary, and violation of probation. He is currently being held in the Siskiyou County Jail on one-million dollars bail and will be arraigned Wednesday afternoon.
 
Collins was the subject of a three-state Amber alert on Monday before she was found by a group of campers off a Siskiyou County road, in an isolated area about 15 miles northwest of Yreka. The four Yreka men found Collins wearing only a soaked t-shirt.
 
The friends were camping and gold mining when they heard about the Amber Alert. They decided to help with the search and eventually found the suspect's abandoned car. About 200 yards away, they found Francis laying on the ground alive and awake. Police say Francis' chances of surviving in the cold wilderness overnight were slim, and the men probably saved her life.
 
Collins was taken from her home around 4:30 a.m. Monday morning. Her father, Ryan Collins, says he awoke to the sound of Francis screaming. He thought she was having a bad dream, but when he went to her bed, she was gone. When he heard a car start up, he ran outside and says he saw Kaplon driving away with his daughter in the back seat. Kaplon is believed to have been drinking before the abduction. The girl's parents say they knew Kaplon through a roommate living in their house. Kaplon is also a father himself.
 
Yreka police are now investigating three crime scenes. The location where Collins was found and the car police say she was taken in. Both are off the Hawkings-Humbug Road in Siskiyou County. They are also investigating the home where Francis was reportedly abducted from early Monday morning.
 
Police say Kaplon is charged with at least one crime which was committed at that home before Francis was abducted. Kaplon tipped off police to his location Monday afternoon.
 
"He in turn also saw the Amber Alert and noted that his name was listed as a suspect and called us and wanted to know why we wanted to talk to him," says Luitenant David Gamache with the Yreka Police Department.
 
California Child Protective Services are investigating the suspected abuse. Francis spent the night at CPS Monday.