Woman Flees Home, Describes Torture, Rape Over 6 Months

Though a sheriff's deputy responded numerous times to a California home where a young woman was held captive and tortured over six months, help remained elusive until she managed to escape on her own Thursday, according to authorities. The 22-year-old woman, who'd unknowingly moved in with a man who would turn out to be the roommate from hell, "had visible injuries consistent with the allegations" that she was physically assaulted and raped when she fled the Chino Hills home of 59-year-old Peter McGuire and alerted bystanders at a park, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department says, per the Los Angeles Times.

"Shortly after moving in, the victim was not allowed to leave and was forcibly held against her will by McGuire," says department rep Mara Rodriguez, per KTLA. While the victim was taken to a hospital, officers descended on McGuire's home but found he had fled. "We heard flash bangs ... the whole garage door, they tore it down ... and they'd gone through the house," a neighbor tells KTLA. Police allegedly found evidence of the crimes at the home, KTTV reports. McGuire was ultimately arrested at a home in Placentia in Orange County on Saturday after a standoff that included a SWAT team. Authorities say the suspect had "barricaded himself in the home and refused to come out," per the Orange County Register.

Held without bail, he pleaded not guilty Monday to torture, kidnapping, kidnapping to commit another crime, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon, false imprisonment by violence, forcible rape, sodomy by use of force, and forcible oral copulation. The district attorney's office has also filed special allegations of personal infliction of great bodily injury, administering a controlled substance during commission of a sex crime, and infliction of great bodily injury during a sex offense. Rodriguez tells KTLA that neighbors had placed seven or eight calls regarding domestic disturbances at the home since the start of the year but "no disturbance was ever substantiated. The house was quiet and no one answered the door." (More torture stories.)