A woman allegedly kidnapped by her mother's then-boyfriend from her family's Santa Ana home as a teen and held captive for 10 years has been found alive after contacting her sister on Facebook, police said Wednesday.
The victim came forward Tuesday and told Santa Ana police she had been drugged and kidnapped by Isidro Garcia in 2004. Garcia then allegedly held her hostage and sexually assaulted her for a decade, Santa Ana police said.
The victim said Garcia forced her to marry him in 2007, and the two had a child in 2012, police said.
The woman recently found her sister on Facebook and then "gained the courage to contact the police," according to a news release by the Santa Ana Police Department.
"Even with the opportunity to escape, after years of physical and mental abuse, the victim saw no way out of her situation" until contacting her sister, according to the release.
Garcia, 42, was booked on Tuesday on charges of kidnap for rape, lewd acts with a minor and false imprisonment, Santa Ana police said.
The woman, now 25 years old, was 15 when she was reported missing by her mother.
Garcia, who police described as the mother's "cohabitant boyfriend" at the time of the kidnapping, allegedly began sexually assaulting the victim in the family home in June 2004, police said.
Two months later, in August, Garcia allegedly kidnapped the victim.
He allegedly assaulted the victim's mother, drugged the victim and drove her to a house in Compton, where he locked her in a garage overnight, police said.
To evade police detection, he obtained false identification for the victim and moved several times, police said.
Garcia allegedly repeatedly threatened the victim, telling her that her family had given up searching for her and they would be deported if she tried to return to them, police said.
