Woman Kidnapped, Sexually Assaulted

A 25-year-old Simi Valley woman was kidnapped and then sexually assaulted Tuesday night, police said.

The woman was on the phone with her boyfriend about 10:20 p.m. when an armed man she did not know entered the home she shares with her parents, police said. The boyfriend, who heard the intruder before the line went dead, called police.

Investigators determined that the intruder forced the woman into her car and drove her several miles to an open field in the west end of Simi Valley. He then sexually assaulted her before fleeing on foot.

Responding to the boyfriend’s 911 call, Simi Valley police met the woman as she returned home in her car. Simi Valley officers and a bloodhound team from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department searched the field and the woman’s house.

Authorities said it does not appear likely that the attack is related to a series of home-invasion rapes and sexual assaults that have occurred in the city in recent years.

There were several differences between Tuesday night’s incident and a string of five sexual assaults and two rapes reported in Simi Valley between June 1996 and March 1998, Sgt. Bob Gardner said.

“The other ones, the suspect entered a house later at night while people were sleeping, and the attack took place in the home,” Gardner said.

The victims in the series of assaults gave several conflicting descriptions of their attackers. Tuesday night’s attacker is described as a darkly clothed male in his 20s, possibly white, about 5 feet, 7 inches and weighing 160 pounds.

“He may match one [of the previous descriptions],” Gardner said, “but he actually doesn’t match most of them.”