Couple charged with grand theft, kidnapping after allegedly stealing car with kids inside - East Idaho News
Crime Watch

Couple charged with grand theft, kidnapping after allegedly stealing car with kids inside

  Published at  | Updated at

POCATELLO — A man and woman have been charged with grand theft and two counts of second-degree kidnapping after they allegedly stole a man’s vehicle with his two daughters inside.

Raymond Aguirre, 24, and Bobbie Jo Torres, 29, were booked into the Bannock County Jail after the incident Saturday night on Interstate 15.

Police reports show a man, who has not been identified, stopped to help Aguirre and Torres after seeing their 2015 Dodge Dart slide off the southbound lanes of the interstate around 8:35 p.m. in Pocatello, according to Idaho State Police.

The Good Samaritan got out of his own vehicle to assist the pair and left his 12-year-old and 11-year-old girls inside his 2007 Pontiac G6.

“The reporting party wanted to remain on scene until an officer showed up due to the fact the Dodge Dart was swerving a lot prior to going off the road,” an affidavit of probable cause says.

It’s not clear exactly how it occurred, but Aguirre and Torres managed to get into the man’s Pontiac and leave the scene with the children still inside the vehicle. In his report, an ISP trooper wrote the Regional Communications Center stated the couple was probably drunk and/or high.

RELATED | Man stops to help stranded motorists on I-15, ends up having his car with 2 children inside stolen

Troopers began searching for the stolen vehicle and found it at Aguirre’s apartment on Dolbeer Street. Nobody was inside the car but officers entered the apartment and took Aguirre and Torres into custody. The girls were found a mile away at their grandparent’s house on 5th Street.

“The children were clearly shaken up and were crying,” court documents say. “The children were having a hard time telling the story due to being upset. They stated that the male subject got into the driver’s seat and that the female got into the back seat…(The kids) advised that the people that had taken the car told the children that they would not hurt them. They told the children that they would give them $100 and that they needed to get home.”

The girls told police when Aguirre and Torres arrived at Dolbeer Street, the couple got out of the vehicle and went inside the apartment. The children took the keys, exited the car and walked to their grandmother’s house.

The man’s car was driven back to him and he was reunited with his daughters.

Aguirre and Torres were arraigned Monday and were being held on $150,000 bail. They are scheduled for their next court hearing on Jan. 27.

SUBMIT A CORRECTION