Kidnap victim moves from home of 66 years

GRANTS PASS — On the front porch of a cozy home built about 90 years ago on Southeast Eighth Street, a message dating from 1952 is etched in the concrete.

Debra Becker’s late father poured that porch, about five years after moving in.

Her mother, now 90, lived there for 66 years, the last 26 by herself after she was widowed.

Now there’s a “for sale” sign out front, erected since the early morning terror of Jan. 9, when a man barged in the front door, and jumped on top of Becker’s sleeping mother in bed.

He brandished a large knife, and threatened to hurt, kill and rape her if she didn’t cooperate, according to a court affidavit. He told her to get dressed, ransacked the house, then forced her to write a $5,000 check and drive to a bank, then Walmart. There she called 911, and the assailant fled.

Hours later, Craig Alan Cruz, who’d been in town less than a month, was arrested in downtown Grants Pass by police who’d seen him on video from businesses near Wal-Mart. He had jewelry with him, believed to be stolen that morning from Becker’s mother. Cruz, 31, awaits trial on charges of kidnapping, robbery, burglary, assault and stealing a vehicle, jailed with a bail of $250,000.

“I got the call, that they had Mom at the station, and you just go into shock,” said Becker. “When I heard the story unfold, it was something I couldn’t believe.”

Becker’s mother, whom the family wants to remain anonymous, emerged physically unscathed.

Emotionally, it’s more complicated.

“We’re still dealing with it. I imagine we will be dealing with it for some time,” Becker said.

Family members agreed the house would be put up for sale, and the matriarch would live with Becker and her husband at their home near Grants Pass.

They say Grants Pass isn’t what it used to be.

“She lived there 66 years and never had one robbery,” said Becker, who was born in 1955 and attended elementary school a couple of blocks away on M Street, in the building now occupied by the Coalition for Kids. “I had been trying to get her to move in with me. It’s a humble little home, but she was comfortable and happy there. I checked on her morning and night.

“How times have changed in our little town. I was born and raised here. I just can’t believe it. We’re grateful and blessed she wasn’t hurt.”

Becker said she wondered whether the traffic of homeless people going in and out of the nearby St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchen put her mother at risk.

“This is controversial, and I’ve donated my time to St. Vincent de Paul soup kitchens in Medford and San Diego and they’re wonderful,” Becker said. “But then I see all the transients sleeping in the neighborhood, leaving their clothes. They mill between that place, the liquor store and Safeway to do their cans. I know it’s a sign of the times.”

Lt. Dennis Ward of the Grants Pass Department of Public Safety said the people in a red Ford Explorer who gave Cruz a ride from near Walmart had indeed eaten at the soup kitchen. When Cruz was captured he was in the Ford Explorer, which was parked near the corner of Seventh and J streets.

But detectives do not know if Cruz frequented the kitchen, nor do they know why he chose to break into the woman’s home, Ward said. They are investigating whether a burglary a couple of blocks away a few hours earlier is related.

“Detectives now believe it was totally random,” Ward said.

Cruz had a “moderate” criminal history in Wyoming and Idaho, according to records.

Becker said her mother seems to be coping, but has been having trouble sleeping. “Like my mom said, if anything good can come of it, maybe people will realize how important it is we keep our police and jail funded,” Becker said.