Police: Father, Daughter Arrested for Alleged Kidnapping of Woman Found in Desert

A man and his daughter who allegedly kidnapped a woman, then left her for dead in the desert, were arrested in Palmdale, California, this week.

Police said 54-year-old Stanley Alfred Lawton and his daughter, Shaniya Nicole Poche-Lawton, 22, kidnapped a 40-year-old woman at gunpoint from a suburb in Las Vegas, Nevada, October 30 and kept her inside a house in Southern California.

The suspects allegedly raped the victim, then left her to die in the Antelope Valley desert. Military police found the victim Wednesday during a routine check as she wandered near Edwards Air Force Base in Kern County.

“On Wednesday November 6, 2019, Major Crimes Bureau detectives assisted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and North Las Vegas Police Department with a kidnapping, rape and sexual assault case,” a press release from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department read.

The department continued:

A female victim was discovered by Military Police Officers in the Edwards AFB area in a disheveled state and in need of emergency medical attention. The victim was subsequently transported a local hospital where she was medically treated.  The preliminary investigation reveals that the Victim was kidnapped from the North Las Vegas area at gunpoint around October 30th, 2019 and taken to the City of Palmdale, California against her will and held in a room. The District Attorney’s office filed the case on Friday morning, November 8, 2019. The investigation is ongoing and no further information is available at this time.

Officials said the victim knew the suspects; however, they did not provide a motive for the alleged attack.

The woman also claimed the man and his daughter forced her to withdraw money from her bank account and said she was repeatedly beaten and sexually assaulted.

Lawton was booked into the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles Wednesday, and his daughter was taken to the Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood, according to jail records. Both individuals were being held on a $1 million bail.

The suspects face charges of kidnapping to commit robbery, attempted murder, kidnapping from outside the state, forcible rape, and three counts of first degree ATM robbery, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Lawton was scheduled to appear in court Friday morning and his daughter will appear Tuesday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Capt. Eddie Hernandez called the case “vicious,” adding that the victim was “very lucky to be alive.”