Woman Held Captive 10 Years Goes to Police

California man charged with kidnapping her as a teen, brainwashing her
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted May 21, 2014 4:59 PM CDT
Woman Held Captive 10 Years Goes to Police
A police photo of Isidro Garcia.   (Santa Ana Police Department)

It's another tale of a longtime captive gaining freedom, with this one bearing more similarity to the Jaycee Dugard case than the Cleveland kidnappings. An unidentified 25-year-old woman who was reported missing 10 years ago in California found her sister on Facebook and contacted her; police say that the victim then "eventually gained the courage" to contact them, reports KTLA-TV. Authorities have since arrested 41-year-old Isidro Garcia on suspicion of kidnapping for rape, lewd acts with a minor, and false imprisonment, says the Santa Ana Police Department. The woman says Garcia had been her mother's live-in boyfriend back in 2004 when he began sexually assaulting her at the age of 15. In August of that year, she says he drugged her and kidnapped her from her home, then locked her in a garage in Compton.

After providing her with fake ID papers, he eventually convinced her that her family had stopped looking for her and that her mother and sisters might be deported if she tried to return. The pair moved frequently over the years and got jobs with a nighttime cleaning service, and police say Garcia assaulted her physically and sexually all the while. "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," say police. Garcia forced her to marry him in 2007, and she had a child with him in 2012, reports the LA Times. (More kidnapping stories.)

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