Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- A 53-year-old man is facing criminal charges after allegedly kidnapping a woman.
- The woman passed a note to a stranger at a Cedar City gas station asking for help.
- The stranger took photos of the man in the store and followed his car until obtaining the license plate number.
CEDAR CITY — A 53-year-old man was arrested after police say a woman he kidnapped passed a note to a stranger asking for help.
Epigmenio Bustillos Marquez is charged in 5th District Court with aggravated kidnapping, a first-degree felony. He made his first court appearance Wednesday and a judge ordered Marquez to remain in custody while he hires an attorney, according to court records.
Marquez is accused of taking a woman he was in a longtime relationship with and not letting her out of his car or out of his sight, according to a police booking affidavit.
The investigation began Saturday when a woman handed a note to a stranger in the restroom of a Cedar City gas station.
"'Please give this to police,'" the woman asked the good Samaritan.
The note contained the woman's phone number, although the woman said Marquez had her phone.
"I said, 'Are you in trouble?' and she said, 'Yes,' and I said. 'OK I'll help you,'" said the woman who asked that her name not be used. "Then she said, 'Give this to police I have to go, he's waiting right outside, he's right there' and she was like shaking."
The good Samaritan watched the woman and Marquez inside the gas station and quietly recorded them on her phone. She then followed their SUV onto I-15 until she could get a license plate number and call 911.
The Iron County Sheriff's Office located the SUV with a Nevada license plate on I-15 and pulled it over.
"The female victim was not behaving normally and I had her exit the vehicle," the arresting deputy wrote in a police booking affidavit.
When questioned, the woman told the deputy, "Lately, Bustillos Marquez's behavior had been erratic," and when she asked him to take her to work that morning, he accused her of being unfaithful in the relationship and "began driving her to Salt Lake or Denver," the affidavit states.
When the woman asked Marquez to let her out of the vehicle, "Marquez wouldn't stop it and told her she would die if she got out due to the speed they were traveling," according to the affidavit. He also allegedly took her phone. While driving, the woman says Marquez also hit her in the mouth with the back of his hand.
Marquez was questioned by deputies and allegedly provided a false name and birth date.
"Even after locating (his Mexican identification) card and (Utah Highway Patrol troopers) collecting his fingerprints and confirming his Identification, Bustillos Marquez continued to provide a false date of birth," according to the affidavit.
Marquez is also charged with having a fake identification card, a class A misdemeanor; assault, taking a phone and not having a valid license, class B misdemeanors; and providing false information to a police officer, a class C misdemeanor.
His next hearing is scheduled for March 19.
