Police: Woman found 10 years after kidnapping

A woman who disappeared as a teenager a decade ago was reunited with her family after she went to police and told them her mother's ex-boyfriend drugged and kidnapped her in 2004, forced her to marry him and fathered her child.

Isidro Garcia, 41, of Bell Gardens, was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping for rape, lewd acts with a minor and false imprisonment, the Santa Ana Police Department said.

Police described a decade during which the woman — abused mentally, physically and sexually by her captor — was moved at least four times and given multiple fake identities to hide her from family and authorities.

According to police, Garcia told her that if she tried to contact her family, the police would deport her to Mexico and that he was her only hope. She was locked up at first, but she eventually began to lead what appeared from the outside to be a normal life.

"Even with the opportunity to escape, after years of physical and mental abuse, the victim saw no way out of her situation," police said in a written statement.

Neighbors were stunned, describing the couple as seemingly happy. They doted on their young daughter and liked to host parties at their apartment in the working-class community of Bell Gardens, about 20 miles from where she originally disappeared.

"He treats her like a queen. He does his best to do whatever she wants," next-door neighbor Maria Sanchez said in Spanish.

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