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Suspect in Custody--AMBER ALERT: Kidnapper Targeted CA Girl

 
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EmmaPeel



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2003 5:17 pm    Post subject: Suspect in Custody--AMBER ALERT: Kidnapper Targeted CA Girl Reply with quote

Important note: Police HAVE apparently cleared the father's involvement, so a this point is a stranger abduction. This was an incredibly brazen abduction.


Police: Tape Shows Kidnapper Targeted Calif. Girl
Sunday, June 08, 2003

SAN JOSE, Calif. — As detectives, rescue teams and volunteers fanned out in search of a 9-year-old girl abducted from her home Friday afternoon, police prepared to release video tapes which they say show the kidnapper specifically targeted the girl for attack.

Jennette Tamayo was still missing Sunday and presumed to be with the man who brutally assaulted the girl's unsuspecting mother and brother before driving away with her.






Jennette Tamayo of San
Jose, Calif., is shown in
an undated photo from
her ID card.
Artist's sketch of abuctor


Police planned to release a 25-minute video pulled from several hours of tape recorded by a neighbor's surveillance camera that captured the chilling after-school abduction.

San Jose Police spokesman Steve Dixon said that while the images on the tape are grainy and at times hard to make out, it clearly shows the attack was not a random residential burglary.

"The tape makes it very clear the he was targeting this house," said Dixon. "He wasn't roaming the neighborhood looking for house to break into. He was there for quite some time, just waiting for this little girl to come home."

The video did not have any clear shots of the kidnapper's license plate or his face, but it does show the man waited in his car outside the Tamayo house for about two hours until the girl returned home alone around 4:20 p.m. Friday, police said.


Jennette's mother and brother arrived home about fifteen minutes later, confronting the intruder.

Police said the tape shows the girl's mother, 31-year-old Rosalie Tamayo, running out of her home and screaming for help as a man sped off with the terrified girl in the back seat of his car, crushing rose bushes along the way.

The mother and 15-year-old brother told police they did not recognize the intruder.

Investigators were out in full force Sunday, with detectives and police officers working around the clock, Dixon said. County search and rescue teams and some 80 volunteers were continuing to scour the San Jose area and beyond, looking in fields, creek beds, parks and highway overpasses and underpasses for any sign of the missing girl. A Santa Clara county police helicopter was conducting an aerial search.

Police released a sketch of the man Saturday. They described the intruder as being in his 30s to early 40s, from 5-feet-2 to 5-feet-5-inches tall, weighing about 160 pounds. He was dark haired, unshaven, and wore a gray beanie and silver colored shirt. He may have scratches on his face or arms from a struggle with Jennette's mother.

Dixon said police still had no immediate leads and no motive for the kidnapping.

The kidnapping has shaken residents of the quiet middle class neighborhood, where Jennette lives with her mother, brother and stepfather.

Police initially thought it might have been a burglary gone wrong, but the man took only a few token items and the video suggested he did not try to conceal that he was targeting Jennette's house.

"It does help us to narrow our investigation -- to know that the attacker went straight to this house," Dixon said.

The California Highway Patrol issued a statewide Amber Alert for a silver sedan the man drove from the scene. It had tinted windows in the rear and a loud muffler and appeared similar to a late 80s or early 90s Honda Accord.
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EmmaPeel



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2003 6:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some facts not in the story.

  • As stated above, biological father has been cleared.
  • It's suspected that the perp had an accomplace. While he was waiting a car pulls up and then drives off. Shortly after that Jennette comes home, so it's thought this person told him she was on her way.
  • The video tape came from a neighbor, who's grandson works in the security business and who installed the camera for her. It's not normally a dangerous neighborhood.
  • Mentioned, but not confirmed: Jennette normally has a babysitter, but not that day (perhaps because the brother/mother were coming home soon after she was). Was the babysitter involved? Was this guy tipped off that Jennette was coming home alone?
  • The boldness of this crime strikes me. Perp gets in though the garage and pulls his car in, goes in and kidnapps Jennette, ties her up and puts her in the car. Meanwhile the mother/brother come home. Brother tries to open the garage door but it jams halfway and he crawls underneath. The perp attacks him and he yells. Mom comes in though the front door and pick up a frying pan to attack the perp who is strangling her son. The perp then turns on her and attacks her bad enough she needs to go to the hospital. The perp then drives away with Jennette.
  • The perp waited several hours to conduct the kidnapping.

This doesn't sound like the usual pedeofile--who will usually run away if confronted. Revenge on the family? An unsually determined pedeofile?
Very scarey!
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 6:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

from CNN (fair use)

Abducted Girl Found Safe
From CNN.com

SAN JOSE, California -- Nine-year-old Jennette Tamayo, abducted from her home in San Jose Friday, was found alive late Sunday evening, police confirmed to CNN.

"The girl is safe," San Jose Police Chief William Lansdowne said.

Lansdowne would give no other details about her recovery.

Police in East Palo Alto were expected to release more information in the case early Monday. Initial reports from local media said the girl was found in East Palo Alto.

Videotape taken from a house down the street from where girl was abducted Friday afternoon suggested the girl was targeted and that the crime was not a burglary gone awry, police said Sunday.

"When he drove there, he went up to the house, spent 12, 13 minutes in the house when no one was home," Sgt. Steve Dixon of the San Jose Police Department told CNN. "If it was just a burglary, he had the time to do it at that time. But he walked out, sat in his car for 20, 30 minutes, waited a long time.

"This little girl Jennette Tamayo came home from school, and in a minute later he went back to the house," Dixon said.

Police searched the area around the home Sunday, going door to door in the neighborhood, using all-terrain vehicles to search fields and a helicopter to scour the surrounding countryside. But their best clue remained the videotape.

"It's a very good piece of evidence," said Dixon. He said authorities had sent the tape to the county crime lab to see whether the images could be enhanced.

"It's kind of a grainy video," he said. But "it does show us a lot of information that we didn't have before."

The Tamayos' neighbors told police they set up a video recorder after their car had been stolen. The tape shows Jennette and the suspect remained in the house together for 30 minutes to an hour, said Officer Catherine Unger.

Police released a sketch of the suspect, and described him as being in his 30s or early 40s, 5'2" to 5'5" tall, about 160 pounds with an unshaven face and dark hair. He was wearing a gray knit cap and silver shirt.

end quote

rd
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 3225

PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 7:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Makes you think how useful the Newport tape could have been in Chandra's case - if they hadn't waited a whole tape cycle, allowing all evidence to be erased, before collecting it.
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 8:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SF Gate www.sfgate.com

Kidnapped San Jose girl found alive in East Palo Alto
Jennette Tamayo, 9, is left near market; 'she's in good shape'
Demian Bulwa, Matthew B. Stannard, Stacy Finz, Diana Walsh, Chronicle Staff Writers
Monday, June 9, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=
/c/a/2003/06/09/MN235773.DTL&type=printable

A 9-year-old San Jose girl who was kidnapped from her family's home was found alive in East Palo Alto late Sunday night after being dropped off near a market, police said.

Authorities said Jennette Tamayo -- whose brazen kidnapping Friday was caught on a neighbor's surveillance tape -- appeared to be unharmed.

"She's at the station; she's in good shape," said East Palo Alto police Lt. Rahn Sibley. "I'm just thankful that she's found. She's apparently OK, and she'll be returned to her family shortly."

Neighbors of the girl gathered on the street and hugged when they heard the news.

"We're totally relieved," said Erin Williams. "I just hope she's healthy. We know she's alive. We just hope she's OK."

Family members were not available for comment when word spread of her discovery, and authorities released few details about how she was found.

The owner of the store where she was discovered told KGO-TV that Jennette had been crying when she came into the market around 10:30 p.m.

Isa Yasin said he had asked the girl whether she was OK, and she said no.

"She said: 'Please don't call the cops. Please don't call the cops. . . . I need to use the phone,' " Yasin said.

Yasin said he had helped her call a number, but an answering machine picked up. When he realized she was the missing girl, Yasin said, he called 911.

Jennette, a fourth-grader, was taken from her San Jose home after her kidnapper savagely beat her mother and brother, who arrived home to find an intruder in their house and Jennette Tamayo crying in the back seat of his car,

which was parked inside their garage.

Earlier Sunday, San Jose police had released a grainy surveillance tape suggesting that the man who kidnapped Jennette had targeted her and might have had help in the attack.

A copy of the tape, played for reporters on Sunday by San Jose police, showed the kidnapper's car parked outside the Tamayo home. Then, the tape showed a second car -- what appears to be a dark American-made sedan with a square back and square taillights -- pull up next to the kidnapper's car.

The second car stayed there for 10 to 12 seconds, long enough for the drivers of the two vehicles to have a brief conversation, according to Steve Dixon, a San Jose police spokesman. Then, the sedan left.

A few minutes later, Jennette walked up to her house. Dixon said the driver of the second car "may have been tipping the kidnapper" to Jennette's imminent arrival home.

"And then again the driver may have just been asking for directions," Dixon said. "We just don't know. It's very suspicious."

What investigators are sure of is that the kidnapper "was clearly targeting that house and that family," Dixon said.

He said detectives had learned from Jennette's older brother that the first digit on the kidnap vehicle's blue and white California license plate was a "5. " The car was described as a midsize silver or gold four-door sedan, possibly a late 1980s or early 1990s Dodge Shadow or Nissan Sentra, with chromed wheels and tinted back windows. The tinting on the rear window was badly bubbling, said San Jose Police Chief William Landsdowne.

CAUGHT ON TAPE

A surveillance camera in the home of a neighbor, three doors down from Jennette's house, caught the suspect on tape several times during Friday's violent abduction. The neighbor has the camera because it was installed by her son, who is in the security equipment business. Many of the images are too fuzzy to make out, but forensic experts examined the tape closely for clues.

Search teams of police with bloodhounds and on horseback had fanned out across the neighborhood, and the FBI became fully involved in the investigation earlier Sunday.

HOME WAS TARGETED

Dixon said the suspect had specifically targeted the Southwind Drive home, waiting almost 30 minutes for the girl to come home and then spending an additional half-hour inside the house. Detectives did not find evidence of a sexual assault, Dixon said. The victim's family had told police that they were baffled by the attack and until Friday had never before seen the man who accosted them, Dixon said.

Investigators suspect the kidnapper got information about the family from someone who knows them. So they were looking at who had recently been to the house to visit or to attend parties. They were also looking at whether the family was mistakenly chosen -- the kidnapper might have been targeting previous tenants of the house.

"We don't yet know what the motive of the suspect was," Dixon said. "But the video gives us even more suspicion. This is someone lying in wait for the victim. How did he know she lived there? How did he know when she was coming home? How did he know no one else would be there at the time?"

On Friday residents on the middle-class street paid little attention to the car parked near the victim's home. Fortunately for police, however, the neighbor's surveillance camera was rolling nonstop.

Here's what it showed: The driver got out of his car shortly after arriving at the house and walked up to the residence. At that point the man disappeared off the surveillance camera. About fourteen minutes later he got back in his car.

CAR STOPS ALONGSIDE

Twelve minutes later, the dark sedan passed him, stopped and backed up until it was next to the suspect's car. Four minutes later, Jennette was spotted on tape walking across the street and then across her lawn to her house. The suspect waited two minutes, got out of his car and followed her inside the house, where he spent a half hour, police said. Then the video showed him walking back to his car alone, getting into the vehicle and backing it into the garage. A couple of minutes later, Jennette's mother, brother and aunt pulled up in their Ford Expedition, a big SUV. The aunt got into her car and drove away. Then the camera loses sight of the attack.

Jennette's 15-year-old brother, Pablo, told police he had walked into the garage, where he saw his sister in the back of the kidnapper's car crying. At that point the suspect suddenly grabbed Pablo by the neck, the teenager told police. Pablo screamed, and his mother, Rosalie Tamayo, rushed to his aid. The kidnapper dragged him across the garage by his neck, police said. The suspect then hit the mother over the head with a pan and a ladder. She fought back, scratching him in the face, police said.

SCREAMS HEARD ON TAPE

About 10 minutes later, the video showed the brother rushing out of the garage and over to the neighbor's house for help. At the same time the mother rushed to the street. Screams can be heard on the tape. The suspect got into his car with the girl and sped off, taking a hard right on Southwind Drive.

Both Rosalie and Pablo Tamayo were treated at a hospital and released. The family remained in seclusion in their home Sunday before Jennette was found. Jennette's cousin, Lupe Martinez, 21, came out of the residence for a few minutes to address reporters camped outside the house just two hours before the girl was found.

She said her aunt Rosalie was having a difficult time.

"She hasn't been eating," Martinez said. "She's missing her little girl."

She said her aunt didn't understand why her family was targeted.

"That's what we are trying to figure out, because it seemed like a burglary at first, but by the comments he made it seemed like it was planned out," she said.

The suspect, according to police, told Rosalie Tamayo when she asked what he wanted, "Well, you know what I want."

"We're just trying to figure out maybe if some time ago she saw this guy," Martinez said. "Maybe like a family gathering or at a friend's barbecue."

E-mail the writers at dbulwa@sfchronicle.com, mstannard@sfchronicle.com, sfinz@sfchronicle.com and dwalsh@sfchronicle.com.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 2136
Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 9:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

jane wrote:
Makes you think how useful the Newport tape could have been in Chandra's case - if they hadn't waited a whole tape cycle, allowing all evidence to be erased, before collecting it.


A tape at the Newport might have answered a lot of questions. I don't have all of the information on that in front of me, but it seems that the police did not ask for the tape, or tapes, right away, if I remember correctly.

I am not really certain that all buildings, etc., and places using surveillance tapes really want to use them if there is a crime committed.

About 1990 I was working at a high profile non-profit organization, and they had two VCRs stolen in broad daylight.

Previously they had had two computers stolen one evening possibly by an ex employee and accomplices. The former employee talked to the employee on duty while two other men stole the computers. The computers were only worth about $5,000, but they had a lot of private and public information on them.

After that theft the company installed new surveillance cameras. It was at that time that two VCRs were stolen in broad daylight. The day after the theft I asked the building manager, who had charge of security for the building, if the theft had been seen on the surveillance tapes. "Oh," he said, "there were no tapes in the cameras."

I never did learn the true answer, whether there were no tapes in the cameras, or whether the security manager just did not want to tell me if there were tapes in the cameras.

What it amounts to is that possibly for good public relations purposes it was better for this company to not catch any thefts on camera than it was to get bad press in the newspapers by the public report of a theft.

With the sloppy police work in Washington I guess we will never know the true policy of the Newport in handling their surveillance tapes. Maybe, for public relations purposes, it was better for the Newport not to examine crimes in the building too closely, which would mean not preserving all video tapes for a certain period of time.

It might be better for some businesses to ignore a certain amount of crime and to not get too involved in criminal cases. With the Newport we may never know.

Anyway the girl in San Jose surveived her ordeal still alive.

benn
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EmmaPeel



Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 472
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 12:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank God this little girl did whatever she did to get free. I don't think someone like this would just let her go after working so hard to capture her. I wonder if she escaped and I wonder if the girl knows where she was held captive. I certainly didn't think they would find her alive from the way this perp acted.

Regarding the Newport tape. Well the problem is age old. Some police departments are reluctant to put manpower on a missing adult case (or even sometimes a missing teen) because they just assume the person left and didn't let their family know. No matter how much the parents claim this is not a regular habit. Unless they see visible proof of a struggle or blood or the person has alzheimers, it's basically logged and forgotten. Usually until it's too late and the body is found. The only reason Chandra's case got as much action as it did was because of the Condit angle and heavy media coverage. There's a world of night and day between the way Modesto police handled the disappearance of Laci from the get go and the way DCPD handled Chandra's case.

I don't think they would have found much on the Newport tape other than the time Chandra left her appartment that morning. Which would have been useful. But the 4 a.m. scream report aside, I don't think there would have been thugs carrying Chandra out of her appartment caught on tape.
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EmmaPeel



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PostPosted: Mon Jun 09, 2003 2:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This just gets weirder and weirder. Somebody isn't telling everything....

Kidnapped girl released by captor; police arrest 'potential suspect'

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Police arrested a "potential suspect" Monday in the abduction of a 9-year-old girl who was found safe after two days, the police chief said.

The man, who was not identified, was taken into custody around 8:30 a.m. after police served a search warrant on his San Jose home, Police Chief William Lansdowne said.

The arrest came three days after an intruder brazenly kidnapped Jennette Tamayo from her San Jose home and 10 hours after she walked into an East Palo Alto convenience store less than 30 miles away, scared but unhurt.

Lansdowne offered no further details on the arrest, other than to say the man looked like a police sketch of the suspect that had been released.

Jennette appeared at the store late Sunday, police said, although the details of how she got there were unclear.

"We're not sure if she was able to escape or if she was dropped off at this location," Lansdowne said before Monday's arrest.

Isa Yasin, the owner of the shop, said he did not see anyone drop off the girl.

"She was crying and scared," said Yasin, who called police after realizing who she was.

Before the arrest, Lansdowne said Jennette was providing use information.

Earlier, Deputy Chief Rob Davis said investigators were focusing on one suspect who police believe was unknown to the family. Davis offered several reasons why police believe the abduction was not a random crime, including that the man twice told Jennette's mother "you know what I want" as he attacked her in her home before leaving with Jennette.

Davis said neither Jennette's father nor stepfather were suspects.

Police interviewed the father, Pablo Velasquez, who told the San Jose Mercury News he had not seen Jennette for two years because of a child support dispute.

"That guy has hurt me," Velasquez said. "That's my only daughter and I love her very much."


Jennette was taken from her home Friday afternoon by a man who staked out her house and waited for her to arrive home from school. Before he left with her, Jennette's mother and teenage brother encountered the man, who beat them before he sped away.

Much of the ordeal was caught by a neighbor's video surveillance camera. Released before Jennette's discovery Sunday, the tape contains several brutal images and sounds.

The videotape showed a man pulling up in front of Tamayo's home Friday afternoon and going inside. After approximately 25 minutes, the suspect returned to wait in the car. At one point another car drove past, then backed up and lingered next to the suspect's car. Police said they were looking for the driver of that car.

At approximately 4:20 p.m., Jennette was seen crossing the street and entering the house alone. The man got out of the car about 90 seconds later and followed her into the house.

After another 25 minutes inside, the suspect came back outside, backed his car into the garage and closed the door.

Around this time, Jennette's mother, aunt and 15-year-old brother drove up. The aunt got out and drove away in a separate car, while the boy tried to open the garage door. He managed to pry the bottom part of the door open and crawled underneath, at which point, police say, he was attacked.

While the attack isn't visible on the surveillance tape, sounds of the altercation can be heard and Rosalie Tamayo was seen running inside the house to help her son. Police said the suspect confronted her between the kitchen and garage, and beat her with pans and a ladder.

By now the boy had broken free, and ran outside for help. His mother came out moments later, beaten and bloodied but screaming for help as well. The suspect then pulled out of the driveway with Jennette inside in his car and sped across the lawn, crushing rose bushes along the way.

Rosalie Tamayo and her son were treated at a hospital and released.

San Jose Police spokesman Steve Dixon said that while the images on the black-and-white tape were not always clear, the tape showed the attack was not a random burglary. Officials were trying to enhance the tape.

"The tape makes it very clear the he was targeting this house," Dixon said. "He wasn't roaming the neighborhood looking for houses to break into. He was there for quite some time, just waiting for this little girl to come home."
###

From another article (curiouser and curiouser):

Investigators believe that the man, whose identity has not yet been released, kept Jennette in the South Bay during those days.

San Jose police Chief William Landsdowne said, "We're very confident he's the right person.''

His vehicle matches the car that was caught on a neighbor's surveillance tape, his features match the description given by the Tamayo family and his injuries match the ones he received during the struggle with Jennette's mother, Rosalie, Landsdowne said.

Deputy police Chief Rob Davis said Jennette gave them enough information to locate her alleged abductor.

"'She's a courageous little girl,'' Landsdowne said.

In the early morning hours detectives moved in on the man at a house on Dearwell Way, near the Tamayo residence on Southwind Drive.

Tom Kornrumpf, a resident of Dearwell Way, said he woke at 4:30 this morning to find that officers had blocked off his street. Kornrumpf said he had a confrontation a couple of weeks ago with a man who lives at the house where the arrest was made, and had called police because the license plate of the man's car was covered with duct tape. He said there are children at the house, including a boy who attends Blossom Valley Elementary School in San Jose with Jennette.

Davis said there appears to be a link between a child the man is related to and Jennette. San Jose police said the suspect has not been cooperative.


Detectives are spending hours interviewing the nine year old to determine the sequence of events leading to her discovery. Davis said investigators still don't know whether Jennette escaped on her own or was released by the man after seeing publicity about the case.
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