A Chamblee woman who claimed she and her 5-year-old daughter had been abducted by two men has been charged with allegedly fabricating the story, police said.
A statewide alert was issued Dec. 23 after Isabel Godinez Lopez called her husband from a restaurant along I-75 and said she and the girl had been taken against their will and were traveling south, police said. Lopez described the car she and the girl were traveling in, and several police agencies assisted in the search for them.
Hours later, a trooper with the Georgia State Patrol spotted the car in Lowndes County, and two men inside — Lopez’s ex-husband, Luis Coc-Reyes, 27, and Porfirio Alvarez, 25 — were each charged with kidnapping.
When the two suspects were transported from South Georgia to the DeKalb County Jail, however, they told investigators a different version of what happened, police said.
“They said Isabel called and asked them to come get her and even gave them directions to where she stayed in Chamblee,” Marc Johnson, Chamblee city manager, said in an emailed statement.
Although Lopez initially reiterated that she and her daughter had been abducted, she admitted to police Monday that she had lied, Johnson said.
Charges have been dropped against Coc-Reyes and Alvarez, Johnson said. Lopez was arrested and charged with a felony count of making false statements.
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