A woman in Southern California who was reportedly abducted a decade ago has been found alive and her alleged kidnapper has been arrested, Santa Ana police say.
The unidentified victim, who was taken in 2004 at age 15, was reported missing by her mother. Police say Isidro Garcia, 41, was taken into custody on Tuesday and booked on suspicion of kidnapping and rape.
According to The Associated Press, police say the woman has reported that she was dating Garcia in 2004 when the suspect assaulted and drugged her mother and drove the teenager to his house in Compton, where he held her against her will.
According to the AP:
"Over the coming months, police say he provided the girl with fake identification and used physical and emotional abuse to prevent her from fleeing."The woman, now 25, came forward to police after finding her sister on Facebook."
"'Over the course of the following months and years, Garcia repeatedly told the victim her family had given up looking for her, and if she tried to go back to them, the family would be deported,' [a police] news release stated."Garcia allegedly frequently assaulted the victim sexually and physically, and the couple repeatedly moved to avoid police."They worked at a nighttime cleaning service so that Garcia "could keep a close eye on the victim," according to police."'Even with the opportunity to escape, after years of physical and mental abuse, the victim saw no way out of her situation and lived a life with Garcia under sustained physical and mental abuse,' the news release stated."Garcia forced her to marry him in 2007, police said, and she bore him a child in 2012."
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/
