A 17-year-old girl was held hostage for nearly a week and raped at a Big Bear Lake-area home before escaping from a locked car, according to the San Bernardino Police Department.
Police said in a statement issued Tuesday that the nearly week-long hostage situation ended Thursday when the girl escaped and sought help from employees at a local business in the Village, a popular shopping district in Big Bear. The employees notified the authorities.
Police have identified Zackary Dourousseau, 25, of Sugarloaf, as the victim's alleged captor. He was arrested and charged on suspicion of kidnapping, false imprisonment and statutory rape.
He is free on bond, according to San Bernardino County Jail records.
Police investigators said Dourousseau picked up the teen in his vehicle on the night of March 1. They claim he took her to her house, where he asked to have sex with her. Police said that after the girl refused, he held her hostage for six days, providing her with little food and water.
“Dourousseau would not let the victim go out and made her consume large amounts of alcohol,” police statement read. “Dourousseau forced the victim to have sexual relations with him in exchange for her freedom.”
Police said the suspect forced the victim to drive with him to her work in the Village on Thursday, where he intended for her to remain in her locked car. Police said she escaped and Dourousseau was later detained at her home in the 300 block of Los Angeles Avenue in Sugarloaf.
Police did not say whether the girl knew the suspect before last week.
