Deputies from the Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office have arrested a man suspected in the attempted kidnapping of a 21-year-old woman in Montesano last week.
The suspect, identified by the Montesano Police as Isaac J. Gusman, 41, was found just after 8 a.m. on Tuesday living in a makeshift shelter in the woods several miles north of Brady.
Undersheriff Dave Pimentel said deputies were tipped off by members of the public who saw his vehicle in the area. The deputies arrested Gusman and took him to Grays Harbor County Jail, where he is being held under suspicion of second-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault.
Last Wednesday at 8:15 p.m., Montesano Police said in a news release that the suspect pulled up to a woman near the intersection of Church Street and McBryde Avenue, and made a comment to her about having a flat tire.
He then allegedly grabbed her and told her to get into his 2003 blue Chevrolet Avalanche.
The victim, AnnMarie Shuck, told The Daily World that she felt something hard shoved into her side when the man grabbed her. She said the object felt like a gun, but that she could not see it and that it could have been some other kind of blunt object.
After she was grabbed, Shuck said she dropped to the ground and screamed, which she believes caused him to abandon his attempt to get her into the vehicle’s passenger seat.
“(With) my first scream, his eyes got very big, and he just jumped up,” said Shuck, who was walking home from her job at Westside Pizza in Montesano when the incident occurred. “I do think it was the screaming mostly, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to get me into his truck at that point.”
She said the entire incident lasted about one and a half minutes, and that it left her scraped up and feeling sore in her midsection, but otherwise uninjured.
The suspect then quickly left the area in his vehicle. According to Pimentel, there were no weapons on Gusman when they arrested him, but the Sheriff’s Office said they are working on a search warrant for the vehicle, and are searching his camp.
Pimentel said Gusman had moved to Washington from Texas in mid-December, and that he had likely been living at the campsite in the woods for several weeks by himself. He added that the campsite was stocked with food, water and fuel.
Shuck said she at first thought the man was kidding when he grabbed her, and that she “never would have guessed” he was someone living in the woods.
“His truck looked spotless, that’s the one thing I could remember specifically,” she said. “He looked clean, his truck looked clean. … He didn’t look scary, he just looked like a normal guy.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office Facebook page, the cabin was 10 miles off Kelly Hall Road in the Canyon River area, located on Forest Service land near the boundary of Grays Harbor and Mason County.
Pimentel was not yet aware of any previous criminal record, but said as of Tuesday afternoon that they were still interviewing Gusman.
Shuck said she felt relieved that the suspect was arrested, and that it reinforces her interest in becoming a police officer one day to deal with these kinds of incidents.
“Hopefully, one day I’ll be able to help someone going through this, because it is very scary.”
Officers from the Mason County Sheriff’s Office, Washington State Patrol, Montesano Police Department, Grays Harbor Drug Task Force, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Green Diamond Security, and Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office have been working together for the past several days on this investigation.
