Screams Lead Calif. Police to Kidnapped Woman who Called 9-1-1
What to know
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San Rafael police rescued a kidnapped woman on Oct. 11 after tracking her 9-1-1 call and following her screams to a nearby location.
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Three suspects were arrested and charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment.
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Police said the men met the victim through an app, refused to let her leave and threatened her with a knife before she escaped and called for help.
Screams for help led rescuers to a kidnapped woman who called 911, California police say.
Three men, Sergio Godinez-Lopez, 24, Christopher Monteroso, 21, and Jonathan Valenzuela-Castro, 21, were arrested on multiple felony counts, the San Rafael Police Department said in a news release.
San Rafael officers got a 911 call from a woman saying she had been kidnapped just before 10 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 11, police said.
Using “GPS information,” police said dispatchers determined the woman was on Robert Dollar Drive in San Rafael.
The woman told dispatchers three people were doing drugs and one had a knife, according to police.
Police said officers responded, with the first one reaching the area “within minutes.”
The officer could hear the woman “screaming for help,” according to police.
By following her screams, the officer found the woman as the three suspects drove away, police said.
After the officer radioed for help, additional officers found and stopped the car blocks away, police said.
The three men in the car were detained, police said.
Officers found Valenzuela-Castro had a loaded handgun with “a high-capacity magazine,” according to police.
Through an investigation, police said they learned the woman had agreed over an app to meet the men in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood.
The men picked the woman up but changed their plans, prompting her to ask to leave, police said.
However, the men refused and drove her to an open space, according to police.
At first, the men did not allow the woman to leave “and, at one point, threatened her with a knife,” police said.
After calling 911, police said the woman escaped and started screaming, which is when the officer found her.
Godinez-Lopez, Monteroso and Valenzuela-Castro have each been charged with multiple counts, including kidnapping and false imprisonment by violence, a Marin County District Attorney’s Office spokesperson said in an Oct. 14 email to McClatchy News.
San Rafael is about a 20-mile drive north from San Francisco.
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