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TWIN FALLS, Idaho – A south-central Idaho man police say forcibly kept a woman as a sex slave for at least a week and potentially off and on for upwards of 18 months, has been charged with first-degree kidnapping, rape and possession of a controlled substance.
Bail on Wednesday was set at $1 million.
On Tuesday afternoon around 4:30, Twin Falls County Sheriff’s Deputies served a search warrant to a home in Buhl. Inside they found devices and restraints that back up the story of a 27-year-old woman who claims she was held here against her will.
The woman claims the abuse began before they moved into the home in southern Buhl, potentially beginning a year and a half earlier.
She told police that Ayala-Arizmendi raped her repeatedly, forced her to use meth and sometimes held a gun to her head.
In essence she told investigators she was Ayala-Arizmendi’s sex slave – forced to perform sexual acts, shackled or with a gun to her head.
She claims he kept her “drugged up on meth,” making her smoke it against her will upwards of two to three times a week.
She says the windows of this home were boarded up – exterior doors were chained preventing her from escaping.
At night the woman claims Ayala-Arizmendi would force her to sleep in his room locking them in with a wood and metal gate like framework that he would fasten and lock onto the inside of the door.
Inside that locked bedroom, more claims of abuse.
The woman also claimed, and the officers found during the search warrant, a metal bucket that she was forced to use as a restroom while she was held captive.
According to police documents, the suspect also threatened to “cut her up into small pieces and flush her down the toilet” if she attempted to leave the house.
But there were times, three or four, she told police that she was allowed to leave the home, but would then return under the threat of harm or death.
On the night of April 8, the woman was finally able to escape.
The police report says the woman’s brother along with three other people came to the home after dark, and “Through a show of force and some deception” she got away with only the “clothes on her back.”
It wasn’t until nearly two weeks later – after the woman was arrested on a drug charge and in jail that she told police her story.
That led police to eventually obtain a search warrant for the home. There they found chains and locks mounted to walls and floors, chains on exterior doors, a handgun, and an electrical wire system intended to shock anyone trying to escape.
Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said Ayala-Arizmendi is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on May 23 at 8:15 a.m.
Ayala-Arizmendi is also being held on a border patrol hold while they investigate his legal status in this country.
