Police: Suspected kidnapper arrested

PROGRESO - A 21-year-old fugitive suspected of kidnapping, beating and sexually assaulting a woman in a criminal scheme that was to end with her death faced more than a half-dozen felony charges Thursday, authorities said.

Jose Alfredo Rodriguez, a Mexican national, hid for two days in a trailer down the street from the 30-year-old victim's home. One of the two women harboring the fugitive finally admitted to police that they were hiding the man, investigators said.

Rodriguez, who police arrested about 9:45 p.m. Wednesday, denied the kidnapping after his arraignment Thursday. He said the pair had planned to run away together to Mexico. He remained in the Hidalgo County Jail on Thursday night on a $408,000 cash bond.

Rodriguez had planned to kill the woman and one of her children, police said. She managed to thwart those plans by locking herself in the bathroom of the home where she was being held and called police, said Dennis Sarmiento, a Progreso police investigator. Rodriguez fled the home when authorities arrived and managed to evade arrest for two days.

The woman, whom The Monitor is not identifying because she was the alleged victim of sexual assault, was taken to McAllen Medical Center after Rodriguez struck her with a tire iron. She has since been released.

A woman who lived at the trailer where Rodriguez hid is expected to face charges later this week for harboring a fugitive. Her mother, who also lived in the trailer, declined to comment when reached Thursday afternoon.

Authorities charged Rodriguez with two counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of unauthorized use of a motor vehicle for stealing the victim's car, two counts of aggravated robbery and one count aggravated assault, aggravated sexual assault and resisting arrest.

Rodriguez, who had a brief romantic fling with the victim about three weeks before the abduction, snatched the woman and her 12-year-old nephew in her vehicle about 11 p.m. Monday from the parking lot of the 1015 Supermarket near the intersection of Farm-to-Market Road 1015 and Maritza Street, investigators and family members said.

The victim's sister said she suspects Rodriguez flew into a jealous rage after he learned the victim was planning to reunite with her husband and move to Houston with her four children. For two weeks he harassed her, stealing her SUV at least once, then calling her to tell her where to find it, investigators said.

"He told her he was taking her to Reynosa to slit her throat and to kill one of her children," the sister said.

After abducting the woman, he drove for about an hour before leaving the child on a nearby street corner. He then took the woman to a makeshift home along a nearby canal and repeatedly taunted her, urging her to run if she didn't want to die, the victim's sister said earlier this week.

Police later discovered her shoes amid recently washed clothes, a bucket and soap at the camp along the canal, Sarmiento said.

The victim's husband contacted police Monday night after Rodriguez answered his wife's cell phone and told the husband his wife would soon die, the sister said. Rodriguez then led the woman to a home in the Capitillo colonia near the intersection of Gonzales Road North and Gonzalez Road West, in the same neighborhood where the victim lived with her four children.

The two women who hid Rodriguez told a reporter Tuesday afternoon that the victim was never kidnapped.

Sarmiento said police immediately suspected the women were involved. They arrested one of the women from an outstanding traffic-ticket warrant and, after hours of questioning, she admitting to hiding Hernandez.

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