Mexican National arrested in Nacogdoches for kidnapping
Posted: Dec 08, 2009 4:37 PM PST Updated: Dec 08, 2009 4:38 PM PST

By Donna McCollum

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) - Her identity is being protected. The young woman, in her 20's, was found packing up her belongings. She's escaping frequent abuse from a common law husband.

"I got hit probably three months every day. Every day," she shared.

Sergio Sanchez, the woman's common law husband is charged with unlawful restraint and resisting arrest. Sexual assault charges are pending. His brother in law, Santo Sanchez is charged with hindering apprehension of the felon. They are in the Nacogdoches County Jail and on hold by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The two families lived on a poultry farm in northern Nacogdoches County. Several weeks before, the couple abruptly left a trailer park on South Street in Nacogdoches. Before that they were in Center where the woman was hospitalized for a brutal beating which lasted for hours.

"One time when I went to the hospital it was three hours," the young woman said. She remembered the exact hours, 4 a.m. to 7 a.m.

Sanchez had been wanted on felony charges since late October when the woman was taken against her will and subjected to more beatings. She described how the man would wrap his belt around his hand with the buckle facing outward. "He then would beat me with the buckle," she said.

The woman had been heard of only once since October. She gained a rare opportunity to call relatives in Mexico. "She only briefly got to talk to them before he discovered that she was on the phone and he disrupted the phone call and took the telephone from her," said Sheriff Thomas Kerss.

The sheriff's department was aided by the U.S. Marshall's Service and Center Police Department in the investigation.

When authorities finally received a break in the case, they found a classic case of how intimidation hindered a woman's safety. "The woman wasn't physically bound, but she was scared to leave. The man had told her he would bring harm to her children from a previous marriage," said Kerss.

The woman has few friends or family in the area. At first she was reluctant to seek help from the Women's Shelter. After some convincing she agreed to seek the agency's help.

http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=11644594