Carjacking leads to kidnapping, lands pair in jail
After their car was stolen by two teens, a couple later grabs one of the boys
On Tuesday, Juan Saavedra and Christal Holliday filed a police report saying two teenage boys had carjacked them, taking their white Pontiac.
The next day, the couple apparently decided to take justice into their own hands.
Police say Saavedra, 37, and Holliday, 23, armed themselves with an AK-47, chased down one of the teenagers in an Albuquerque 7-Eleven parking lot, threw him into the back of their Dodge Charger and used a Taser on him before tossing him into a hole in Los Lunas. They then drove the boy back to Albuquerque, where he was able to escape, according to the criminal complaint filed in
Metropolitan Court.
The complaint doesn’t say how old the teenagers are.
Saavedra and Holliday were arrested early Friday morning and are being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center on a $50,000 bond. They are each charged with kidnapping with great bodily harm, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and other charges.
On Wednesday, an officer was called to the 7-Eleven on Carlisle and Candelaria NE to investigate a possible kidnapping, according to the complaint. There, a surveillance video showed two teenagers standing outside the store as a black Dodge Charger without a hood pulled into the parking lot.
One of the teenagers ran away, but the Charger sped after him and cornered him in a nearby dirt lot.
That’s where the man, later identified as Saavedra, got out of the car, pointed an AK-47 at the teenager and dragged him into the vehicle, according to the complaint. “The teenage male is continually pulling away from the male subject in an attempt to get away,” the officer wrote in the complaint. “The male subject then hits the teenager in the head with the firearm.”
Witnesses said they heard a gunshot coming from the area.
The video shows the teenager being thrown into the back of the car, which was then driven away, according to the complaint.
All that was left at the scene was blood on the asphalt and a bullet casing.
It’s unclear what happened to the other teenager.
Several hours before the kidnapping, police recovered the Pontiac that had been carjacked.
Officers identified Saavedra and Holliday as suspects in the kidnapping because the two drove up to reclaim that car while inside the black Charger with no hood that had appeared in the video, according to the complaint.
They were also able to identify the teenage carjacking suspect who was seen being kidnapped in the surveillance tape.
When police approached the teenager’s father, he told police his son should have been home earlier and that his cellphone had been turned off.
As they were talking to the father, the teenager arrived at the apartment, bleeding from his left ear, covered in scratches and dirt, and with marks around his wrists and ankles, according to the complaint.
He said a couple in a black Charger had taken him. He also said they had shot him in the ear at the 7-Eleven parking lot.
“(The teenager) advised his wrists were zip-tied and they placed ropes around his ankles,” the officer wrote in the complaint. “He also stated they had tased him about 50 times with a black Taser that looked like a flashlight. They also covered his face with a bandana so he couldn’t see.”
The teenager told officers the couple had taken him to Los Lunas and thrown him into a 5-foot-deep hole. He said they pointed a gun at him, and threatened to kill him and his family if he told the police.
He said they then drove him back to Albuquerque, where he was able to get out of the Charger and run away.
He told officers the two people who took him were the same people he and his friend had carjacked the night before.
The teenager was taken to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. A police spokesman didn’t return a call asking if the teenagers had been charged in the carjacking.