Countywide : Reward Offered in Search for Assailant

The Ventura County Crime Stoppers Program is offering up to $1,000 for information leading to the arrest of a man who attempted to rape a woman on the Ventura Freeway in Camarillo, while she waited for a tow truck.

The woman was sitting in her car about 9 a.m. Feb. 23 after using a freeway call box to summon assistance when the man pulled up behind her, got out of his van and asked if he could help, said Sgt. Kitty Hoberg of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

The woman declined the offer, Hoberg said, but “thinking he was a good Samaritan, she unlocked the passenger door and he immediately entered the car, pulled out a knife and put it to the scarf around her neck.”

The man then told the 24-year-old Oxnard housekeeper to lie down and started pulling her pants down. Suddenly, he stopped and fled the car, the woman told police. She looked up and saw a tow truck pulling up in front of her car.

Hoberg said the woman was able to assist sheriff’s investigators in constructing a composite drawing of the man and described the white van that he was driving.

The woman’s only mistake, Hoberg said, was unlocking her door. “It was raining at the time and it was dark and she was very alone,” Hoberg said. “Even right there on the freeway with all the cars whizzing by.”

Anyone with any information on the crime or the identity of the man is asked to contact Crime Stoppers at 987-TALK in Camarillo.