Kidnap, rape suspects sought

Police artist sketch shows one of the suspects being sought.

A young woman was allegedly abducted and raped by two men in an incident that began at the Walmart parking lot on the evening of June 28.

Four days later, last Wednesday, the Idaho State Police, to whom the rape was first reported, released the first information in the case, surprising local law enforcement, which had not been informed previously.

ISP released a composite sketch of one of the rape suspects and asked any citizens who had any information about the crime to contact them at 846-7550.

The incident began at around 10:30 p.m. that Saturday night when surveillance cameras at Walmart picked up one of the suspects approaching the store on foot. The suspect sat on a bench at the front of the store for well over an hour, said Rick Ohnsman, information officer for the Idaho State Police. "You can see him on camera beginning a conversation with several people," Ohnsman said. "In one case, he sat and talked to a couple" that ISP would like to interview. "We hope somebody says 'I remember talking to him'."

Ohnsman said the suspect can be seen on the grainy tape recording eyeing the victim as she went into the store. "She comes out, he engages her in conversation, and then he walks with her to her car and they drive away," at about 11:40 p.m.

According to the victim, Ohnsman said, he asked her for a ride into town. At some subsequent point, the suspect pulled a knife on her, but exactly where and when is not being released by ISP. The victim was then blindfolded in some manner and driven to an unidentified location where a second person got in the car, and the two men proceeded to rape the victim. She may have been transferred to a second vehicle either prior to or subsequent to the attack.

Based on information provided by the witness, ISP believes the second person is an older man who may be a trucker. The younger suspect is described as a white male, 5' 6" to 6' tall who was wearing a dark blue t-shirt with blue shorts and white athletic shoes. His face was marked with acne.

ISP was not releasing any other information but the Mountain Home News has learned that the victim is believed to be from Alaska and possibly a student at the University of Idaho. She had been visiting in Boise this summer and had met an airman. She had been to a party in Mountain Home earlier that evening.

Several hours later she was apparently dumped by her attackers at a rest area near Payette where she called her boyfriend who went and picked her up, then drove her to the hospital in Meridian, where staff, unsure of the jurisdiction, called Idaho State Police.

ISP immediately launched an investigation, but inexplicably failed to notify anyone in law enforcement in Elmore County.

Sheriff Rick Layher first learned of the matter when he stopped at Sunset C and a woman in the store, who had heard about the case on the news, asked him about it. He immediately called Police Chief Tom Berry, who was only just learning about the case himself from his officers, who also had seen the newscast and were calling him to find out what happened.

Both were furious with ISP officials. "This was just obscene," Berry said of ISP's failure to notify local law enforcement. Berry noted that, had they been informed promptly, local authorities could have been assisting the investigation promptly by attempting to locate witnesses while their memories were still fresh.

Ohnsman, who admitted ISP had made a mistake, said initially ISP wasn't sure in whose jurisdiction the crime, which began with the brandishing of the weapon, actually belonged. But Berry dismissed that, noting the incident clearly began within a few hundred yards of the Mountain Home Police station.

Berry said ISP had requested that local authorities try and find a vehicle it said may have been involved in a rape (now believed to be the victim's car), but did not tell anyone locally any details, including the fact it involved an alleged rape that may have begun in Mountain Home. Local authorities located the car on old Highway 30 a short distance beyond the Exit 90 Burger King.

ISP sent one of its top officials to Mountain Home last Thursday to apologize to Berry and brief he and his officers on the case.

Ohnsman said the decision to go public with the case last Wednesday was in an effort to generate leads from possible witnesses, and ISP had received several phone calls after their Wednesday press conference (he also apologized for not notifying the Mountain Home News of the press conference).

Ohnsman did not say if any of the calls had generated any additional leads so far. Posters of one of the suspects, showing a composite drawing made from information supplied by the victim, where being placed in truck stops throughout the region.