Pair charged with kidnapping, rape

By Scott North

Herald Writer

Two Everett men were charged Friday with kidnapping and rape in connection with the May 24 abduction of a woman from a grocery store parking lot.

Raul Celso Orea-Herrera, 22, and Miguel Ramirez Roman, 20, are each charged in Everett District Court with one count of first-degree kidnapping and two counts of first-degree rape.

The single-page criminal complaint filed by Snohomish County deputy prosecutor Michael Held offers scant detail. But a search warrant affidavit also filed in court Friday alleges the 28-year-old woman was not only repeatedly raped, but also was kicked and perhaps left for dead by her attackers before they abandoned her in a field east of Snohomish.

The victim told police that after the men finished kicking her, they opened bottles of beer and stood around for a few minutes, "apparently making sure she didn’t move," the affidavit said. The woman said "she laid very still and tried to pretend that she was dead or unconscious."

She said she went to get help after the attackers drove away.

She was abducted a few minutes before 2 a.m. as she left the Albertson’s store in the 6700 block of Evergreen Way. She repeatedly was hit on the head with a beer bottle and pulled into a waiting car.

A store customer who witnessed the attack tried to come to her aid, but the kidnappers drove away before he could reach her.

Police linked the defendants to the incident after surveillance tapes showed them purchasing beer in the store a few minutes before the abduction, the affidavit said.

In keeping with store policy, the cashier had checked the identification for the man who purchased the beer, and confirmed he was at least 21 by entering his date of birth into a database. Detectives used computers to search for suspects who matched the suspect’s date of birth, physical description and type of vehicle.

The computer search showed that Orea-Herrera’s date of birth matched the suspect’s, and that he was suspected of assaulting another woman with a crowbar on May 19, the search warrant said.

A witness from the May 24 abduction identified Orea-Herrera as the man who purchased beer just before the woman was kidnapped. The victim said the man’s photograph looked like one of her attackers, but she wasn’t positive, the affidavit said.

Orea-Herrera was arrested as he left his job near Woodinville. He later took police to Roman’s apartment, where Roman was arrested,.

Police obtained a judge’s permission to take blood and hair samples from both men for use in genetic tests, documents show.

You can call Herald Writer Scott North at 425-339-3431

or send e-mail to north@heraldnet.com.