The teenage girl who police first believed was a kidnapping victim from a Kooser Road group home has admitted to her participation in the robbery of the home's van and has been sent back to her original county of residence.

The 15-year-old girl admitted to her role as an accessory after the fact to auto theft, said assistant district attorney Marc Buller, supervisor of the county's juvenile division. She will receive her sentence from a judge in her home county.

The other three teenage girls involved in the case, who range in age from 16 to 18, are waiting for a fitness hearing to determine if they will be tried as adults for the assault and robbery of the group home's counselor on Nov. 12. Buller said the girls are being charged with armed robbery, auto theft, false imprisonment and assault and are currently being held at the county juvenile hall facility.

The incident began late in the morning of Nov. 11, when three of the five girls who lived at the 1457 Kooser Road home threatened the home's counselor with a knife, demanding cash and the keys to the home's van. The three then tied the counselor up and left.

As the girls were leaving, the counselor thought she heard the fourth girl say she didn't want to leave with the trio but being told to get in the van anyway, prompting the belief she was a kidnapping victim and the issuing of an Amber Alert.

The girl was found in the city of Ventura along with one of the three suspects on Wednesday afternoon after they called police to say they were scared and wanted to turn themselves in. Police later found another of the suspects at the home of a relative in Ventura. The fourth girl was found in Stockton early that morning.

Buller said investigators realized fairly soon that the "victim" was really an accomplice in the crimes.

"The police knew in pretty short order," Buller said. "It didn't make sense that they'd take her. The facts and circumstances suggested that the young woman didn't do anything other than going along and helping them perpetrate their crime."

Buller said the district attorney's office wants to charge the three girls as adults and will have a Dec. 12 court date to set the future date of the fitness hearing. He said that because of the ages of the girls and the charges they face, it will take some time for both prosecutors and defense attorneys to get all of the paperwork together.

The three are being held in the county's juvenile hall facility.

All of the girls at the Kooser Road group home had violated conditions of their parole for particular offenses in their home counties, though authorities would not give details due to their minor status.

—Gregory Watkins