Police See Parallels in Kidnap Try, Rape

Police said Thursday they believe two men who abducted and raped a 17-year-old Japanese exchange student in Oxnard earlier this week also tried to snatch a woman off a Moorpark street last week.

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department and the Oxnard Police Department are expanding the search for the men countywide.

“This is a high priority for the sheriff’s office and the Oxnard Police Department,” said Sheriff’s Det. Mike Christensen, who is handling the Moorpark case. “We’ve got a lot of resources being directed toward these guys.”

Although the identities of the men were still unknown, the reported attacks share several elements, said Oxnard Police Det. David Klug. Both incidents involve two men who are 25 or younger, driving a dark green or black four-door Saturn with tinted windows, and grabbing women who walked alone at night, police said.

The exchange student, who speaks little English and had been in the United States about a week at the time of the attack, has since decided to return to her family in Japan, Klug said.

But she has agreed to work with an artist before she leaves to develop a composite of the suspects, Klug said. The target of the attempted abduction in Moorpark also is working with an artist.

Authorities in Moorpark describe one suspect as a 5-foot-8, 175-pound Latino with a dark complexion, and the other as a 5-foot-7, 160-pound Latino. Oxnard detectives have said the suspects could be as young as 18 but as old as 25.

The exchange student was returning to her host family’s home in Oxnard about 9:45 p.m. Sunday when she was forced into a Saturn and taken to an undetermined location, where she was raped by both men, police said. She was then released at an industrial park, where police found her about 2 a.m.

The Moorpark incident occurred at 10:20 p.m. on Aug. 9. An 18-year-old woman was walking in Mountain Meadows, an upper middle-class residential neighborhood, after a four-mile run.

She later told police she had seen a Saturn drive by a couple of times and then saw it parked across the street. She was jumped by two men, but freed herself and ran to the nearest home.

“At the time, we didn’t know what their motivation was,” Christensen said. “Based on what happened Sunday night [in Oxnard], I think our victim was very lucky she got away.”

Authorities had hoped that the recent arrest of Vincent Henry Sanchez--who is charged in a string of sexual assaults in Simi Valley dating back five years--would make the county safer for women at night, but these recent attacks concern them.

“I don’t think we can classify this as a serial rapist at this point,” Klug said of the two men in the recent incidents. “But we need to get these guys in jail as soon as possible.”

People with information about either case are asked to call Christensen in Moorpark at 494-8223 or Klug in Oxnard at 385-7662.