Perez-Roque was apprehended by authorities and now faces charges of false imprisonment and kidnapping, but based on the woman’s testimony, they’re looking for a second suspect as well.
Advertisement
The unnamed woman, a Cuban national, was kidnapped from her home on Martinique Ave.in New Orleans by co-worker Mario Perez-Roque after she turned down his romantic overtures. According to the Times-Picayune, she was abducted by two men as she left her home on her way to work around 10 a.m. The men told her they would kill her if she didn’t cooperate, forced her into a vehicle, tied her up and drove her to the mid-city home, reports the paper.
Enlarge WVUE The woman told police she was able to free one of her hands, break free from her bounds and escape the N. Lopez St. home right after Perez-Roque and an accomplice brought her there. “As soon as I jumped out of the auto he looked at me and he had her around the neck in a headlock and just wasn’t going to let her go”.
“Basically, the “house of horrors” is what we call it because there was two-way mirrors inside the house”.
CBS affiliate WWLTV reports a Good Samaritan came to the victim’s aid when he saw her running and screaming for help near a busy New Orleans intersection Friday morning as a man chased and attempted to restrain her.
Google Maps Street View Police described one of the units in this double shotgun home in the Mid-City section of New Orleans as a “house of horrors”.
The abduction is still under investigation following a search of Perez’s home, which Kenner Spokesman Lt. Brian McGregor referred to as a “house of horrors”.
Perez-Roque was arrested on Friday evening on charges of kidnapping the woman. “I didn’t know for sure until he grabbed her and turned around and I saw the look on her face”.
‘We found restraints. They’ve got false walls and everything else inside the house, ‘ McGregor told the Advocate. Who wants to be restrained? At the home, she was tied to a chair, gagged and had a bag placed over her head, the NOPD said. She made it to a bank parking lot near Canal Street where Gary Messina and his wife stopped to help.
Following his latest arrest, police, are investigating whether other women may have been taken to Perez-Roque’s property against their will in the past, given the elaborate set-up.
A U.S. Marshals Service task force then learned Perez was at a small office building in the 2800 block of Division Street in Metairie and arrested him there.
Advertisement
However, police believe two men were involved in the kidnapping. Multiple signs in Spanish urged visitors to close the door behind them, and at least one surveillance camera overlooked a laundry room outside the entrance to the apartment where police said Mario Perez took the woman Friday.
