Victim Also Stabbed in Neck : Rape Suspect Captured After Pursuit Along Interstate 8

After an 18-year-old San Diego State University student was raped, authorities spotted the suspect, chased him east on Interstate 8 and arrested him.

James Wednesday Mosley, 28, a transient from Tyler, Tex., was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, sexual assault, burglary, robbery, kidnapping and auto theft. He is being held without bail at County Jail.

The incident began about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday when the student left a bakery on El Cajon Boulevard near 54th Street. She told police that as she got into her 1987 Camaro, a man forced his way into the car and drove her to the 6000 block of Dehesa Road in Alpine, where he allegedly cut her throat with a nail file, raped her, then threw her down an embankment into a ditch.

California Highway Patrol Officer James Worley said the incident occurred about 250 yards from his house. He said that he and his wife, home for the evening, heard the woman calling for help and saw she was bleeding profusely.

“She was standing by our gate,” Worley said. “She called, ‘I need help, I’ve been raped.’ I wish I had been aware . . . “

Worley said his wife, a registered nurse, treated the jagged, bleeding cut on the victim’s neck while he notified authorities.

Bob Melton, a CHP spokesman, said a broadcast alerted officers that the rape suspect had just left the scene of the crime and was headed east on Interstate 8 in the victim’s car. Deputy Sheriff Howard Bartholomew entered the freeway to watch for the vehicle.

“As fate would have it, it was right there in front of him,” Melton said.

Bartholomew said he caught up with the car on Interstate 8 at Sunrise Highway. Because he thought the Camaro might outdistance him, he called for assistance. Bartholomew and Highway Patrol Officer Bob Grosset chased the Camaro for about five miles. The driver pulled over just east of Kitchen Creek Road, Bartholomew said.

“It was a little effort on my part and a lot of luck,” Bartholomew said. “If the guy had been traveling faster, he would have been past me. If Highway Patrol hadn’t been in the area and I had to initiate the pursuit, I could have lost him.”