By John Lenger

Gazette Staff

Loh-Sze Yvonne Leung met the young man named Lee on Monday in the surf beside her Daytona Beach hotel. The 21-year-old Dunster House resident says she "felt a little sad for him" because he so obviously didn't fit in with the spring break beach crowd. Leung befriended Lee, and Lee introduced the Harvard student and some members of her Christian fellowship group to his brother, a friend, and the two young girls who were with them.

Leung's simple gesture of friendship helped solve a kidnapping case that began last Friday in Galesburg, Mich., and sent the two little girls, ages 6 and 9, back home safe and sound after a four-day nationwide hunt that involved thousands of law enforcement officers.

Leung was hailed as a hero by police and media reports. Leung herself, in a telephone interview Wednesday morning, credited her faith for putting her in the right place at the right time. "This is just a testimony to God's awesome power to do things," she said. "We were led to them for a purpose."

Teresa Mae Hainer, 9, and her sister, Jessica Lynn Hainer, 6, were returned to their home in Michigan on Tuesday night. Daytona Beach police and the FBI took Lee Stafford, 17; Ronald Stafford, 21; and Ricky Geer, 19; into custody, holding them on federal warrants charging them with kidnapping. Press reports on Wednesday said police were unclear on a motive. Leung herself, based on her conversations with the three men on Monday, speculated that the abduction was "an adventure that was really misguided."

An Evangelical Mission

Leung is in Daytona on spring break with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a group of about 30 students from Harvard, M.I.T., Wellesley, and several colleges in Minnesota, participating in what is called the Florida Evangelism Project. The project involves meeting people and engaging them in conversations about religious beliefs. "We ask people questions like 'Do you think God exists?,' just to get people thinking," Leung said.

She was swimming Monday afternoon in the ocean near her hotel and struck up a conversation with Lee Stafford, who told her that he had just moved to Florida from Michigan. "He said Michigan was really boring, and he was looking for excitement and adventure," Leung said. "But I was thinking, 'he really doesn't fit into the scene here.' I felt a little sad for him, and I thought I would really like to share the Gospel with him when I get to know him better."

Lee Stafford told Leung he was in Daytona with his brother and a friend. "And we have two little girls with us," he said, explaining that the girls were his brother's children. Leung invited them all to dinner with the group -- "We cook for ourselves every night" -- and Stafford said, "Would you like to meet the two little girls?"

Stafford introduced Leung and some of her friends to Ron Stafford, Ricky Geer, and the Hainer girls. "The girls were shy, quiet," Leung said. "It felt like something was wrong, but I couldn't really tell what it was." The girls were dirty, and had been swimming in the ocean all day in their clothes. But Leung reasoned that the group might not have had time to buy swimming suits, and thought the girls might just be unresponsive to the newcomers.

After leaving the Michigan group on the beach, Leung's group couldn't stop thinking and talking about the three men and the two little girls. "It was really weird," Leung said. "We were all intrigued by them. I felt like it was God talking to us, telling us to be aware of them."

The evangelical group cooked dinner in one of their rooms, beginning at 5 p.m., and were disappointed when the people they had met on the beach didn't show up. But just as they were finishing dinner, about 6:30, the Michigan group came in. The two Staffords and Geer talked with their hosts about themselves -- "they were very honest with us about where they were from, giving us their names, and telling us what they thought, even though they knew who we were and that we might not like what they said" -- such as that the best thing about Daytona "was the women." The two groups also talked a little about religion; the girls continued to be very quiet. Leung's group was scheduled to go to a meeting, so the Michigan group left about 7:30 p.m.

After the meeting, Leung and some of her friends decided to watch the Academy Awards ceremony on television. A promotion for the upcoming news broadcast shocked them -- it featured the two girls who had been with them just hours before.

"Everybody in the room knew it at once," Leung said. When someone changed the channel, more information came on about the three men being sought. The group's leader, Karl Wirth, a '93 Harvard graduate who now is a staff worker at M.I.T., called the police and the FBI.

"We spent a while praying for them, praying for the two girls and their safety," Leung said. "And for the three guys, that they wouldn't do anything stupid." The fellowship group spent a restless Monday night. "It was hard to sleep," Leung said.

Tuesday morning, police located the Michigan men's car, and soon found them, and the two girls, in a souvenir shop. The three men surrendered without a struggle. The girls were examined and later declared to be healthy and happy. "It was an answered prayer," Leung said.

Aftermath

Leung, from Burlingame, Calif., is an environmental studies concentrator who will graduate in June. She has been nominated for a Harvard-Yenching fellowship that would allow her to study in China for a year. Her future plans also include volunteering for a year on campus with the Harvard-Radcliffe Asian American Christian Fellowship.

After the arrests, Leung became, as one reporter put it, "the celebrity du jour," holding a press conference and responding to endless phone calls. But all the attention hasn't seemed to faze her. The thing she is most concerned about, she said, is letting the three Michigan men know that her group hasn't broken faith with them, and is still concerned about their well-being.

Lee Stafford had been particularly eager to hook up with Leung's group on the beach on Tuesday; they had made plans to meet at 11:30 a.m. By then, the three men were in custody. Leung issued her own press release, describing the evangelical group's prayers for all involved. While their primary concern was the welfare of the two girls, "we wanted to communicate especially to Ron, Rick, and Lee that we were and are sincere in our efforts to reach out to them," Leung wrote. "We did not intend to betray you; we did not know what you had done when we met you. We are still praying for you and for your families."

Some information for this report was provided by the News-Journal of Daytona Beach, Fla.