Philadelphia ? The rumor going around 7-year-old Erica Pratt’s blighted neighborhood was that her family had come into money. A lot of money.

Neighbors thought maybe that’s why two men had snatched the little girl from the sidewalk in front of her home Monday night and someone had called the family demanding $150,000 in exchange for Erica’s life.

Erica Pratt smiles while being held by her uncle Joseph Moore Jr. at a news conference in front of her Philadelphia home. A day after police said Pratt gnawed her way through duct tape to escape kidnappers, the 7-year-old smiled and fidgeted as relatives described their relief at her safe return.

Whatever the motive, the plot was foiled Tuesday night. Police said the “brave little girl” chewed through duct tape binding her hands, and broke out of the locked basement in an abandoned home where she had been held for almost 24 hours.

The hunt for her two abductors continued Wednesday. Police say the two men wanted for questioning James Burns, 29, and Edward Johnson, 23 are known to the girl’s family.

If the kidnappers had planned to use Erica in a get-rich-quick scheme, they picked an unusual target. The Pratts are far from wealthy, family members and neighbors said. Their home, a small brick rowhouse, sits on a block peppered with abandoned buildings.

“They don’t have $150,000. There’s not $150,000 in this whole neighborhood,” said Mannwell Glenn, a friend of the family who has been acting as their spokesman.

Erica’s mother, Serena Gillis, had her as a teenager and gave her up to be raised by her grandmother.

Just about everyone on the street had heard stories the family might have come into money. Some said the girl’s uncle had died, leaving behind a lucrative life insurance policy. Others said a relative who owned a record label had just signed a contract with Death Row Records, a major rap label.

Both stories had elements of truth. One of the girl’s uncles, Joseph Pratt Jr., was shot dead in his car in March. But family members said there was no life insurance.

Another uncle, Derrick Pratt, is the chief executive of an independent rap record label, CP Entertainment, and had briefly been in talks with Death Row but no deal and no financial windfall was in the works, Glenn said.

Authorities said Erica described an extraordinary getaway from the two men:

She was bound with duct tape around her arms, legs and eyes and left in the dirty basement of a building 10 miles from home. She was able to chew through the tape, break through the basement door and go up to the first floor. Unable to escape, she smashed a window and called out for help to some children playing in front of the abandoned house.

The children pulled Erica out of the window, and one of them rode their bike to alert the police, Lt. Michael Chitwood said.