Four teenagers who escaped from a South San Jose group home earlier this week apparently plotted months ago to attack their counselor and steal a van, police said Thursday. All the girls -- including one thought to have been abducted by the others -- will now face criminal charges.

``There wasn't a kidnapping,'' said San Jose police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten. ``They had talked about doing something like this before.''

One of the girls at the six-bed Kooser Road home felt a counselor was too strict with her, investigators said. She allegedly began planning over the summer to assault the counselor and decided Tuesday morning to execute her plan.

``Hey, this is the day that we're going to do it,'' the girl told her housemates after the counselor asked her to wipe a counter, said Sgt. Dave Hober, recalling the conversation he had with the suspects. ``The girls then agreed on what they were going to do,'' Hober said.

The counselor, whose name was withheld Thursday, was bound with a cord at knifepoint, police said. She told police the girls stole cash and the keys to the group-home van. The counselor, hearing a commotion outside, believed they forced a fourth girl, who appeared to have just arrived at the home, into the van.

But the girl was actually at the home during the attack and watched what happened. She then chose ``to go with them for the ride,'' Hober said.

One of the suspects, a 17-year-old, was arrested in Stockton early Wednesday; the other three girls, ages 15 to 17, were found a few hours later in Ventura and were taken back to San Jose late Wednesday night.

The four girls probably will face charges of armed robbery and possession of a stolen vehicle, Tepoorten said.

State officials who license group homes have begun an investigation into whether poor supervision, among other potential problems, led to the escape. All the girls were in the home on various probation violations, but because they are juveniles, police would not disclose their history.

"We're viewing this incident very seriously,'' said Andrew Roth, an official with the California Department of Social Services. ``We're also going to be taking a larger, systemic look to see if there's something somebody should have caught along the way, or if we need to look at safeguards so that something like this doesn't happen in the future.''

The facility, run by E.E. Residential Group Homes of Cupertino, began housing non-violent youth offenders in March 2002.

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