Girl, 14, uses Snapchat to tell friends she'd been kidnapped at San Jose motel
From left to right: Albert Thomas Vasquez, Antonio Quirino Salvador, Hediberto Gonzalez Avarenga
SAN JOSE, Calif. - A 14-year-old girl who had been drugged, kidnapped and sexually assaulted used Snapchat to tell her friends that she was being held against her will and her high-tech actions led to her safe release, San Jose police said.
The girl "Snapchatted" her friends on Tuesday morning to say she had been taken by three men and did not know where she was, according to Sgt. Enrique Garcia.
Her friends then used Snapchat's location service to figure out that she was that she was at the E-Z 8 Motel at 1550 N. First St. in San Jose and called 911.
Police arrived about 11 a.m. and saw Thomas Vasquez exit a motel room and found the teen inside. Vasquez was arrested on kidnapping, false imprisonment and rape by intoxication charges.
Detectives said they later learned that Vasquez met the girl in Capitola earlier that day, and gave her drugs. She was knocked out. Vasquez called two others -- Antonio Quirino Salvador and Hediberto Gonzalez Avarenga -- for help.
The three put the girl in their car, police said. Vasquez sexually assaulted her in the car, and then the three of them drove to the motel where Vasquez sexually assaulted her again, police said.
Police took Salvador and Avarenga into custody on Wednesday on kidnapping and conspiracy charges.
Anyone with information about this case or similar incidents involving these suspects is asked to contact Detective Anthony Barajas of the San Jose Police Department’s Sexual Assault Investigations Unit at 408-277-4102.