Crime & Safety
UPDATE: Missing Youth Found with Captor in San Jose
A man, 23, was arrested May 1 at a VTA station under suspicion of unlawful intercourse with a minor and false imprisonment.
Updated at 4:41 p.m., Friday.
A young woman who has been listed as a missing person since March was found with her captor at a Valley Transportation Authority station in San Jose Tuesday, according to a press release sent out by the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.
Sgt. Jose Cardoza of the Sheriff's Office said that the youth is a 16-year-old female reported missing out of San Jose. While he would not release her name, he said she is caucasian, 5'9" and 130 pounds.
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According to officer Jose Garcia of the San Jose Police Department, the youth has been reported missing with his agency since March, though he could not specify dates because investigators have not had time to go through all of the necessary records yet.
Cardoza said that the youth had been living with the suspect for a "few months" against her will.
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According to the release, members of the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Transit Patrol arrested Merced Pacheco, 23, of Santa Clara at the Orchard Light Rail Station for suspicion of unlawful intercourse with a minor and false imprisonment.
While checking proof of payment on a light rail train, two fare inspectors found the young woman had an expired VTA youth pass and no identification.
Pacheco, who was with the young woman, also failed to produce proof of payment and both were asked to disembark from the train.
As a fare inspector asked more questions of the young woman, she told the inspector that she was being held against her will by Pacheco.
Pacheco is being held at the county jail and the youth, initially taken into protective custody, will reunite with her family soon if she hasn't already, Cardoza said.
Since the victim is a minor, Garcia said he could not comment on whether the youth has a history of running away.
In March, near the 2100 block of Coastland Avenue in San Jose's Willow Glen neighborhood. The man, described as a Hispanic male, was carrying some kind of electronic device, possibly a stun gun.
Police found no connection between this case and the disappearance of missing Morgan Hill Sierra LaMar during the course of their investigation.
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