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Hicks Road home invasion leaves victim traumatized
Armed intruder forces woman to drive to the bank to cash a check
By Jason Baker
Police were searching last week for a suspect who assaulted a Los Gatos woman and left her bound and gagged in her Hicks Road home, just yards from the site of a weekend double homicide that had happened just three days earlier.
"This had nothing to do with the homicide, even though it was right next door," Sgt. Tam McCarty of the Los Gatos-Monte Sereno Police Department said. "The two are not at all connected."
Shortly before 2 p.m. on May 19, police received a 911 call from the residence. Dispatchers could hear only the sounds of a muffled voice at first, but moments later could hear a female caller explain that she was bound and gagged. She told dispatchers she was able to peel the duct tape off her mouth to call for help.
Officers arrived at the scene to find the 37-year old woman partially tied up inside the house and very traumatized. She told police an intruder had approached her from behind in her backyard about 12:51 p.m. The intruder held a knife to her back and forced her back inside her home.
While inside the home, the suspect held a knife to the victim's throat, lacerating her throat, cheek and chest. The intruder located an unsigned cashier's check while searching the house and demanded the victim take him to the bank to cash it.
While seated in the back of the victim's vehicle, the suspect threatened to kill her children as they arrived home from school if she did not comply with his demands. She drove the victim to the Bank of America on Camden Avenue in San Jose, returning to the home after cashing the check.
Upon returning to the house, the suspect tied up the victim and taped her mouth. He tried to drop her into the crawl space below the floorboards of the house but was interrupted by a knock on the door. The suspect then fled the house through the back door.
Police don't believe that the victim knew her assailant. McCarty said the man was deliberate in his searching of the residence, which led to his discovery of the cashier's check.
The suspect is believed to be a transient, based on his clothing and the smell of body odor described by the victim. Officers continued to canvass the area and were questioning homeless and known transients in the mountain areas, he said.
McCarty declined to release the victim's name, but said, ". . . she's traumatized. Emotionally, she's been through a real ordeal."
Police described the suspect as a white man, middle-aged, 5 feet 6 inches tall, wearing green army fatigues, a white sleeveless shirt and brown work boots.
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Willow Glen, California Since 1992
