Category: Kidnapping
High school student says teens lured, kidnapped, burned, battered, and forced him to drink alcohol — over a girl
Four Texas teens kidnapped a high school student and tortured him after a dispute over a girl, police records say.
The Houston Chronicle identified the suspects — all 17-year-olds — as Jose Rojas-Alvarado, Oscar Armando Santiago-Martinez, Angel Lemus-Perez, and Carlos Roberto Oliva-Villeda.
The affidavit said the suspects threatened to kill the alleged victim and harm his family and friends if he contacted the police about the reported encounter.
Court records show that all four suspects have been charged with aggravated kidnapping with a deadly weapon and engaging in organized criminal activity — both first-degree felonies.
Citing an arrest warrant, KVUE-TV reported that the alleged victim departed Del Valle High School with three of the four suspects and went to a nearby gas station on Feb. 19.
The alleged victim told police that the suspects — whom he had been friendly with for approximately two years — invited him to go and get food, the affidavit said.
However, the affidavit also said the suspects drove past the restaurant and instead drove the alleged victim to Rojas-Alvarado’s home, where the student said he had previously visited.
The alleged victim told investigators that he and the suspects were in the garage of the home talking for about an hour and a half before they instructed him to sit in a chair in the middle of the room, where he had his hands and legs restrained with duct tape, according to the affidavit.
“Two of the suspects left, with Rojas-Alvarado returning with a gun,” KVUE reported. “He then allegedly pressed the gun to the victim’s head and told him not to move as the other suspects began restraining him in the chair with duct tape.”
The affidavit said the suspects took turns hitting the alleged victim with aluminum baseball bats, belts, and a walking cane while Rojas-Alvarado held him at gunpoint.
Police said the alleged victim told them that Lemus-Perez heated a box cutter with a lighter and pressed it against his chest, while Rojas-Alvarado forced him to drink from a bottle of clear alcohol.
The alleged victim informed investigators that Rojas-Alvarado threatened to cut off his toe with the box cutter if he didn’t drink the alcohol from the bottle, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said Rojas-Alvarado grabbed a chainsaw and a machete while the suspects threatened to cut off his body parts. However, the alleged victim said Rojas-Alvarado was unsuccessful in starting the chainsaw.
The purported victim said Rojas-Alvarado told him he was being beaten and tortured for talking to his girlfriend, the affidavit revealed. The alleged victim said Rojas-Alvarado ordered him to stay away from his girlfriend.
The affidavit said the suspects threatened to kill the alleged victim and harm his family and friends if he contacted the police about the reported encounter.
The alleged victim told investigators that Rojas-Alvarado deleted his and the other suspects’ contact information from the teen’s phone, according to the affidavit.
The affidavit said the suspects cut the alleged victim loose from the chair and then dropped him off at an unknown location.
KVUE reported that police obtained a search warrant and discovered evidence at the residence of Rojas-Alvarado that corroborated the alleged victim’s claims.
According to KVUE, police noticed contusions and redness on the alleged victim’s thigh consistent with blunt force trauma, as well as irregular marks on his chest, back, and abdomen.
During follow-up interviews with detectives, Santiago-Martinez, Lemus-Perez, and Oliva-Villeda admitted to planning the alleged attack a week prior and then coordinating and carrying out the purported confrontation, KVUE stated.
KVUE reported that Santiago-Martinez and Oliva-Villeda confessed to threatening, beating, and holding a toy gun to the head of the alleged victim.
The four suspects were arrested.
The Del Valle Independent School District provided the following statement to KEYE-TV:
Del Valle ISD is aware of the reports of an off-campus incident that resulted in the arrests of former DVISD students. The incident is being actively investigated by the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. The district does not have further information at this time. The safety of our students and staff is our top priority, and we will continue to monitor this incident. We will always communicate with the school community when there are impacts to the school environment.
J’Kaideon Mitchell, a student at Del Valle High School, told KEYE, “I thought it was insane, especially at our school. It’s just crazy how strong that person would have to be to report it and just stay alive, honestly.”
The investigation is ongoing.
The Travis County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to Blaze News‘ request for comment.
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Half-naked woman ‘missing flesh’ and handcuffed in backyard was tortured for weeks, beaten with bat, shot with BB gun: Cops
Police found a half-naked woman handcuffed in a Texas backyard who had been tortured for a considerable period of time by five people she knew for years, authorities said.
The Austin Police Department said in a statement that officers conducted a welfare check just after 9 a.m. Oct. 30 after a report regarding a “woman in distress who appeared to be restrained and calling for help.”
The woman told investigators she ‘got in trouble’ the night before police found her because her pants fell down, according to the affidavit.
Police said they discovered a woman outside a home who was “handcuffed to a piece of exercise equipment.”
“The woman showed signs of physical distress and had visible injuries consistent with prolonged restraint,” the press release read. “The woman told officers she had been held at the residence for several months and was not allowed to leave.”
Police said they had to cut through the “heavy metal links” to release the woman who soon was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
Officers discovered three children inside the house who were “safely removed and placed in the care of Child Protective Services for safety and support.”
Police arrested five people from the residence and charged them with aggravated kidnapping, aggravated assault, injury to elderly or disabled, and unlawful restraint.
The suspects were identified as 51-year-old Michelle Garcia, 32-year-old Mache Carney, 30-year-old Juan Pablo Castro, 21-year-old Crystal Garcia, and 21-year-old Maynard Lefevers.
The Austin American-Statesman said it obtained the arrest affidavit, which indicated the woman told police she was friends with one of the females who lived in the house and visited often — but “one day they decided they didn’t like her anymore and no longer allowed her to leave.”
The suspects said they had known the woman for years, the affidavit stated.
Carney told police they started restraining the woman to stop her from stealing from neighbors, the affidavit said.
Several of the suspects claimed the woman suffers from mental health issues, according to the affidavit.
Crystal Garcia told investigators that the woman was only “50/50” capable of consent, the affidavit stated.
Citing the affidavit, KVUE-TV reported that the woman had been at the home since July and had been “handcuffed inside and outside the house for months.”
Castro — the husband of Carney — admitted to purchasing the handcuffs, according to the affidavit.
According to the affidavit, the woman told detectives a male and a female repeatedly shot her with a BB gun and that she was beaten with a baseball bat and fed only once a day.
Michelle Garcia told investigators they fed the woman one meal a day because she had gotten “chunky,” according to the arrest affidavit. However, police noted that the woman appeared malnourished when she was found.
Police said the woman told them she was punished if she tried to leave and had open wounds, cuts, swollen wrists, missing flesh from her hands and feet, extensive scarring all over her body from BB gunshots, and a battered face, the American-Statesman reported, citing the affidavit.
KVUE, citing law enforcement, reported that the woman had “hundreds of small BB scars across her body and a swollen shut right eye from a pellet injury.”
The affidavit said the suspects confessed to shooting the woman with BB guns. Castro told police he bought an electric rifle-style BB gun “to shoot her” because he didn’t want to touch the woman.
According to the arrest affidavit, Castro told authorities he would come home from work, grab the BB gun from his closet, and “chase her around the yard,” firing pellets.
“I [expletive] hate her,” Castro told investigators when asked why he shot the victim, the affidavit stated.
A 4-year-old child who lived at the home told a specialist during a forensic interview that Castro — his father — shot the woman when she was “bad,” according to the affidavit. The child said he could hear the woman outside screaming, according to the affidavit.
The woman told investigators she “got in trouble” the night before police found her because her pants fell down, according to the affidavit.
The American-Statesman said as “punishment,” a number of suspects “allegedly shot her repeatedly with a BB gun,” secured her in the backyard with handcuffs, then left her there “overnight without pants or food as temperatures dipped into the 40s.” The paper, citing police, added that the woman said she “begged and cried to be released, but was threatened with more and worse violence” if she kept pleading.
The investigation is ongoing, and those with information about the case are urged to contact the Austin Police Department’s Human Trafficking Unit at 512-974-4786 or submit an anonymous tip to Crime Stoppers at austincrimestoppers.org or 512-472-8477.
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