By Jessie Stensland / Whidbey News-Times
A San Francisco man was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping and assault for allegedly abducting his adult daughter from WhidbeyHealth Medical Center in Coupeville on March 27, according to court documents.
The 18-year-old woman is safe after Marysville police arrested her father, Pedro G. Olivio, a couple of hours later.
In court Monday, however, the prosecution only asked the judge to find probable cause that Olivio committed the crime of assault in the fourth degree, domestic violence, but not kidnapping. The judge agreed and released him on his personal recognizance.
At about 10:30 a.m., a deputy with the Island County Sheriff’s Office responded to a report of a kidnapping at the hospital to find four witnesses, one of whom had taken a video of part of the incident.
A young woman explained that the victim had been living with her but had recently become delusional.
The friend had previously taken the woman to the hospital but she had left before getting any help. She called the woman’s parents for assistance. The woman’s father, Olivio, agreed to come up from California and to meet them at the hospital.
Olivio, however, got upset with his daughter inside the hospital. He grabbed her, put her over his shoulder and walked out with her as she was kicking and screaming, pleading to be released, the deputy’s report states; a witness said he repeatedly threatened to kill her.
A witness said Olivio then forced her into an SUV, punched her in the face several times and drove off, the report states.
Since Olivio had said he was taking his daughter to a behavioral health hospital in Marysville, the deputy alerted police there; officers were quickly able to find the pair.
Olivio was arrested and later transported to the Island County Jail. The officers reported that the young woman was physically fine but that she definitely needed a mental health evaluation; her friend transported her to a different hospital for help, the report states.
In the jail, Olivio told the deputy that he had come to Whidbey to help his daughter, but he also accused her of “molesting people” and said nothing was being done.
This story originally appeared in the Whidbey News-Times, a sister publication to The Herald.
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