Woman Escapes After Being Kidnapped and Tortured in Marblemount, WA

Marblemount, WA – A 66-year old Marblemount man has been arrested and booked into the Skagit County Community Justice Center  for Suspicion of 1st Degree Kidnapping, 1st Degree Rape, Four counts of Assault 2nd Degree, one count of Assault 1st Degree, Felony Harassment with Threats to Kill, Unlawful Possession of a Firearm 1st Degree and Possession of a stolen firearm.

SkagitBreaking.com obtained probable cause affidavits of arrest in the case through a public disclosure request.  According to court documents, on January 20th, 2018 around 11:47 a.m.,  Skagit County 9-1-1 received a suspicious call from an anonymous female caller. The woman gave an address in Marblemount and said “someone is being held captive’ and hung up on dispatchers.  A Skagit County Sheriff’s Deputy was dispatched to the address to follow-up on the suspicious call.

While the Deputy was en route to the suspicious call  a second 9-1-1 call came into Skagit County 9-1-1 Center around 12:03 p.m. This caller told dispatchers that there was a female running down the roadway with handcuffs on. The caller advised dispatchers the female said she was being held captive. Around the same time, the   Skagit  9-1-1 call center  received several other 9-1-1 calls advising of a female running down the roadway with handcuffs on. These callers stated the female appeared to be being chased by a male.

Deputies made contact with the victim and confirmed she was wearing pajamas, had handcuffs attached to her right wrist and duct tape around her neck.  The victim was transported by ambulance to a local hospital with visible injuries to her face and body.  A Detective Sergeant met the victim at the hospital and conducted an interview of the victim.

Court documents state the woman knew the man and  on January 17th, 2018 the man became upset with the woman. Around 10 p.m. the man became enraged and forced the woman to strip naked and lay on the floor of his motorhome.  The man then handcuffed the woman’s hands above her head and used rope to tie her legs to a sink and couch  in the motorhome.

Court Documents state the man then spent the next 16 hours physically assaulting the victim. The man repeatedly kicked the woman in the thighs and groin area, leaving severe bruises. The man then heated a butcher knife on the stove and held it to the inside of the woman’s thighs, and outside of her groin, causing burns.  The man then held the knife to the woman’s throat and asked her “Can you feel that? You don’t know what pain is, but you’re going to.”  The woman told Detectives the man then used a pair of pliers and twisted her nipples causing severe abrasions.  The man continued to torture  his victim by using  a Torch to burn her groin area. He then cut her abdomen and legs with a knife and used scissors to cut her hair over and over again. He told the victim she “needed to understand what a skank and a whore deserves.”

The woman told detectives around 2 p.m. on January 18th, 2018 she was moved from the floor of the motorhome to a bed where she was handcuffed and injected with heroin on her ankle.  The man told her he was going to kill her by injecting her with heroin and make it look like an overdose.  He then injected her with a second syringe, which he told the woman was a mixture of Heroin and Rat Poison before sexually assaulting her.

Court documents state on January 19th, 2018, the man took her with him for the day. The victim stated they took a family member of the mans  to a doctor’s appointment. She wrote on a piece of paper “please call 9-1-1” and put it in her pocket. She told Detectives she was planning to try to hand the note to someone but felt physically beaten, exhausted and scared and that she didn’t think she would be able to get away.  She said the man told her he would kill her and then her entire family if she tried to escape,  so she didn’t hand the note to anyone.  The woman told detectives the man then took her to several job sites and held her captive in his vehicle before being taken back to his motorhome where she was allowed to sleep.

On the morning of January 20th, court documents state the man became angry again and handcuffed her and tied her to the cabinets above the bed in the motorhome.  Sometime that morning, someone knocked on the door of the motorhome. The Victim tried to scream for help but the man jumped on her, bit her face and choked her until she lost consciousness.   When the victim regained consciousness, the man was outside the motorhome talking to someone. She saw that he had dropped his cell phone and she made the 9-1-1 call and told them someone was being held captive before hanging up the phone.   The victim said someone called the phone back and left a voicemail.  The man returned to the motorhome and listened to the voicemail and became enraged. The victim told Detectives that the man had removed the handcuffs from the cabinets but left them attached to her arm.  The man told the victim to get dressed and threw some pajama pants at her.  He told her he was now going to kill her and her family.  The victim made a daring escape when the man had his back turned and she ran out of the motorhome. The man chased her but she was able to flag down a passing vehicle for help.  When the man saw the victim with the passing car he returned to his motorhome and fled the scene in a vehicle.

On January 20th, Skagit County Sheriff’s Deputies served two search warrants on the man’s motorhome. Inside Deputies found the butcher knife allegedly used in the assault, several torches, pliers, handcuff keys, several cell phones, two firearms, including a smith and Wesson 9mm handgun, and a Beretta .32 handgun,  straps, nylon rope, duct tape, scissors with hair still in the blades, syringes, and rat poison.  These items were all consistent with what the victim told Detectives that the man had used during the time she was held captive in his motorhome.

On January 22nd, 2018, a records check of the firearms recovered during the search warrant came back with a hit for a stolen firearm. The Smith & Wesson 9mm had been previously reported stolen in May of 2016 during a burglary from a residence on S. Lyman Ferry Road.

The suspect was booked into the Skagit County Community Justice Center  for multiple charges related to the incident.

Please note: The suspect has been charged with a crime but has not been found guilty of the crimes in a court of law. SkagitBreaking.com does not normally  name suspects in Sex Crimes until they have been found Guilty in a court of law. This is to protect the identity and privacy  of the victims. 

The Skagit County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the story.