Photo: Courtesy Ventura County Jail Booking Suspect
Written By: Robert L. McCullough
October 3, 2022 – Ventura County, Ca. The unincorporated areas of eastern Ventura County, compared to the heavily-populated coastal region popular with tourists, is a remote and highly rural environment; perfect for the occasional dumping of criminal evidence and for the abduction of helpless victims of sexual predators.
It was on September 13th when Ventura County Sheriff’s Department deputies attached to the Headquarters Patrol Station were called out to the unincorporated area east of the city by a 27- year-old female who reported an episode of violent sexual assault. According to VCSD spokesperson Det. Nicole Grover, the woman was abducted outside a City of Ventura liquor store by a man who lured her into his white truck “on the pretense of smoking marijuana.” She was then driven outside of the city “where he forcefully sexually assaulted her.
Just two weeks later, the same deputies responded to a second report involving the same white truck and the same tactic using “the pretense of smoking marijuana.” Once inside the truck, this second victim, a 29-year-old resident of Ventura, was threatened by the suspect who “strangled, tased, and threatened to kill the victim while he was holding a knife.” The female victim was able to flee and contact a passing CHP deputy on patrol through the area.
Suspect Eliel Mejia
At that point, the VCSD Investigations Unit and the Ventura Police Department’s Special Victims Unit conducted an investigation leading to the identification of 22-year-old Santa Paula resident
Eliel Mejia as the principle suspect. Contact was made with Mejia early in the evening of September 30th , when he was found in possession of “the taser believed to have been used” earlier, as well as a 1997 Dodge Ram pickup truck white in color.
Mejia was taken into custody and transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on multiple charges of kidnapping, assault with a deadly weapon, and criminal threats, with his bail set at $500,000.
