SoCal woman fights off kidnapping, identifies assailant as her former housekeeper in disguise
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What was meant to be a quick errand to help support a holiday toy drive turned into a brutal attack and possible kidnapping for one Temecula woman just days before Christmas.
The bizarre episode began on Dec. 18 when Temecula resident Erin Quinn got a text message asking her to pick up toys for a Christmas toy drive.
That Wednesday morning, Quinn received the text message from an unknown number with a 213 area code who claimed to be an elderly woman named Connie, KTLA 5 reported.
Through text messages, Quinn was told to meet the supposed toy donor in an unincorporated area of Perris, known as Winchester, at a home on Memory Lane.
When Quinn arrived at the home, she got out of the car, left it unlocked, and went to the front door but no one answered, ABC 7 reported. She got another text message, from the same number, telling her to wait in the car and the elderly woman’s caregiver would take the gifts outside.
“I was completely set up [there were no presents] and when I got back into my vehicle, I had no idea someone was waiting for me,” Quinn wrote on a GoFundMe page, created by a friend to help raise funds for her medical and mental health bills, in addition to repairs to her damaged car. Quinn did not respond to a Times request for comment before press time.
Matthew Muller was convicted of kidnapping and sexual assault in a 2015 case in which Vallejo police initially accused the victim and her boyfriend of making up the story about her abduction. Muller has now been charged with two earlier home invasions.
Back in the driver’s seat, Quinn was immediately attacked from the back seat by an unidentified woman wearing a blond wig, according to news reports.
Quinn said her hair was pulled, she was tased multiple times on her head and forced to drive.
During the nearly 30-minute assault, Quinn told KTLA that her attacker threatened to go after her children and mother.
In self-defense, Quinn kicked her attacker and “in a complete panic” bit a portion of her finger off, “because I didn’t know what else to do,” Quinn wrote on the GoFundMe account.
Quinn said she tried to get help by getting the attention of anyone in the surrounding area.
“Several construction workers around the area witnessed what was going on, videotaped and did nothing,” she wrote.
At one point Quinn crashed into two cars, and while fighting off her attacker, pulled off the wig and identified her assailant as her former housekeeper, Olga Mendez, ABC reported.
A bystander finally intervened, pulling Mendez off Quinn, but Mendez fled the scene. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department issued a news release, saying that deputies initially investigated the incident as a domestic dispute but learned quickly that it was a kidnapping attempt and an assault. Responding sheriff’s deputies transported Quinn to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
Quinn told ABC she and Mendez had parted ways on good terms about four years ago.
“I strongly believe that her plan was to kidnap me and take me to Mexico for either ransom or sale,” she said on the GoFundMe page.
Authorities identified and arrested 44-year-old Mendez in Paramount, 10 days after the assault.
Mendez was booked into Cois Byrd Detention Center for kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, criminal threats and two unrelated warrants, according to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department.
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