San Jose police have arrested three people on suspicion of kidnapping and torturing a man in February, the department announced Thursday.
The victim was kidnapped on the evening of Feb. 13 and held against his will in a home on the 2600 block of Million Court, police said.
The suspects tortured and assaulted him multiple times before eventually letting him go, according to police.
Early in the morning on Feb. 15, police responded to a local hospital and met with the victim. He transported himself to the hospital and was being treated for non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.
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Detectives took over the case and identified 49-year-old Duc Nguyen, 50-year-old Kim Ho and 30-year-old Dayton Pham – all San Jose residents – as the suspects believed to be responsible for the kidnapping and torture, police said.
Police said they don’t believe the victim knew the three suspects, but they do think he was abducted in the area.
Detectives said Nguyen was also responsible for an assault with a deadly weapon and criminal threats incident on Feb. 14 at a business on the 3000 block of Story Road, police said. He was also a primary suspect in an organized retail theft case that the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office was investigating.
Authorities obtained arrest warrants for the three suspects as well as search warrants for their respective homes. On April 9, Pham and Ho were arrested in San Jose and Nguyen was arrested in Sunnyvale.
"It goes to show that people are really out there doing violent crimes, but our robbery unit detectives, because they did such a thorough investigation, they were able to say, ‘Not in San Jose. You can’t get away with it,'" police spokesperson Stacie Shih said.
While serving the search warrant, detectives found evidence connected to the crime as well as illegal gambling machines and illegal marijuana for sale, police said.
The suspects were booked into Santa Clara County Jail for multiple crimes, including robbery, kidnapping, torture and assault with a deadly weapon, according to police.
Neighbor Charmon Ashby said the people in the home where the victim was held have been a nuisance, adding that Ho, who she knew as Lisa, had her house raided at least three other times in the past.
"So when I found out that somebody had been hurt, that they hurt somebody, I was really surprised by that," Ashby said. "I didn’t think of them as being violent, though we were nervous about that possibility."
