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American Morning

In Northern California, Intense Search Under Way Today for 27- Year-old Nikolay Soltys

Aired August 21, 2001 - 11:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: In Northern California, an intense police search is under way today for 27-year-old Nikolay Soltys. He's accused of killing five family members before taking off with his 3- year-old son.

CNN's Rusty Dornin joins us from Sacramento.

Rusty, any leads.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, Sacramento County sheriff deputies thought they had a big lead in the wee hours this morning when they found the suspect's car in a parking lot in Sacramento behind a home improvement store. They immediately launched -- the car was empty. They immediately launched an aerial search ground search with dogs in the surrounding apartments and surrounding parking lot areas, but there was no sign of Nikolay Soltys. Now apparently, the car has yielded very few clues.

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CAPT. JOHN MCGINNESS, SACRAMENTO CO. SHERIFF'S DEPT.: Surprisingly enough, there's no good physical evidence in the car. Great mystery as to how he could have been involved in very violent murders not have physical evidence readily visible on his person when he saw other people that we know he had contact with yesterday.

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DORNIN: Now we know that there is a large population of Ukrainian immigrants in the area where the car was found. It is possible somebody might be harboring him or someone might have given him a vehicle. While this is a very close-knit community, police say they do feel it is probably unlikely that someone would be harboring him, knowing brutality of the murders, but he may have convinced them he had nothing to do with this, that he may have been framed, because this is a community that is very suspicious of police. There are about 100,000 Ukrainians immigrants in the Sacramento area. And many of them, there are language barriers, there are cultural barriers, and police are having a very difficult tough time talking to many of these people. They are going back today and going through the area near where the car was found and trying to get more people to discuss whether they saw anything, but right now, they have very few leads. And because the car was discovered about 12 hours after the crimes were committed, again, the car was cold, indicating that he had abandoned it long before the police found the car. It is very possible that he has gotten outside this area, outside their dragnet, and police at this time are still warning he is armed and dangerous of course, very worried, because he has 3-year-old son with him, and considering the brutality of the murders he committed yesterday, they have no idea how he is treating his son -- Kyra.

PHILLIPS: Rusty Dornin, thanks so much.

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