CASSANDRA CORIELL - 8 yo - Bakersfield CA

BAKERSFIELD,
Calif.—Authorities on Thursday surrounded the south Bakersfield home of
an 8-year-old girl who briefly went missing this week, amid reports that
the child's father is suicidal and in possession of guns. Ray
Coriell, the father of Cassandra Coriell, texted his wife that he wanted
to harm himself shortly after noon Thursday, a day after the girl's
brief disappearance, said Kern County sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt.

"We responded to the residence and talked to family members out
in front of the house. They said he was despondent inside the house
with a firearm or firearms," Pruitt said.
Cassandra's parents
told authorities that they found her missing from her bed around 4 a.m.
Wednesday, prompting a search of the city.
Someone found the
girl six hours later walking alone about nine miles from home.
Investigators have been trying to determine how she got there.
Pruitt did not say if Thursday's standoff is related to the girl's disappearance.
Pruitt
said there are no suspects in the case yet, and that Ray Coriell has
not been ruled out as a person of interest in the investigation of his
daughter's disappearance.
"It's an ongoing investigation. We haven't named any suspects and we haven't eliminated anyone as a suspect."
Authorities say Cassandra and her mother are in protective custody.


http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18569864

BAKERSFIELD, Calif.—A
standoff at the Bakersfield home of an 8-year-old girl who went missing
this week has come to an end with the girl's father surrendering to
police—but authorities have also released disturbing details of the
case. Investigators "developed information" during the Thursday
standoff that the girl's father kidnapped and raped her and tried to
kill her, Kern County sheriff's spokesman Ray Pruitt said.
Ray
Coriell was arrested on suspicion of kidnapping with the act of rape,
kidnapping with intent to commit rape, sexual intercourse with a child
under 10 and attempted murder, said Pruitt. He was being held on $1
million bail.
The girl was reported missing from her bed at
around 4 a.m. Wednesday, prompting a search of the city. A passerby
found her six hours later walking alone about nine miles from home.
Investigators have been trying to determine how the girl got there.
The
standoff began shortly after noon Thursday when Coriell texted his
wife, saying that he wanted to harm himself. He surrendered at around 7
p.m. Thursday after authorities obtained a warrant for his arrest.
"We
responded to the residence and talked to family members out in front of
the house. They said he was despondent inside the house with a firearm
or firearms," Pruitt said.
During the standoff a crisis
negotiation team had tried for hours to get the father to come out of
the house, while deputies evacuated neighbors.
Nick Miranda told The Bakersfield
Californian that deputies came to his door Thursday and told him to
leave. He decided to take his toddler and his partner and leave in their
SUV.
"I'm getting my kid out of here," Miranda told the newspaper. "I'm not sticking around to find out what happens."
Authorities
said the girl and her mother are in protective custody. The girl is
being cared for a local hospital, with a deputy stationed at the
hospital for her protection.


http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18569864

"I've known their dad since we were like ten years old, so it's not
like somebody like I just ran across," mother Veronica Coriell said.
"We've been childhood friends."

Long-time friends and after two
children together, Veronica Coriell can't grasp how her ex-husband could
have harmed their 8-year-old daughter.

"That's not Ray. Something is not right, something happened in the last year with him,"
Coriell said. "It breaks my heart. I love my little girl, but what's
going on with him, it breaks my heart to know that he could do that."

After a seven hour SWAT standoff on Thursday, 29-year-old Ray Coriell was
arrested and charged with the kidnapping, rape and attempted murder of his own daughter.

It came as a shock to the family. But, Louis
Gill, Director of the Alliance Against Family Violence and Sexual
Assault, knows cases like this all too well.

"The unfortunate reality is that over 70 percent of perpetrators of sexual assault are
known to their victims," Gill said. "It's a family member. It's a family
friend. It's somebody that is trusted."

All five of Ray Coriell's children have been taken into protective custody, but Veronica
Coriell worries about her daughter and older son.

"Both my kids need me. They are both over there, and I can't do anything. I'm helpless right now," the mother said.

The Sheriff's Department is collecting evidence that will help a judge
ultimately determine who gets custody of the girl and her siblings.

"You have to understand that in this case we're going to check all the boxes
before we allow this. She's been through enough trauma," Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Mother-reacts-to-allegations-her-ex-husband-raped/cOTrrYk1bE6mZXB-h0ygFQ.cspx

Sheriff Says Girl Was Raped, Left For Dead

Crosby Shaterian - 23ABC

POSTED: 1:37 pm PDT July 29, 2011
UPDATED: 5:47 pm PDT July 29, 2011

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- Sheriff
Donny Youngblood with the Kern County Sheriff's Department spoke at a
press conference Friday and detailed what happened to an 8-year-old girl
(23ABC is withholding her name) before she was found in a dirt lot
Wednesday morning.

The last time the girl was seen, her
family was putting her to bed at 9 p.m. Tuesday at its home on Loch
Lomond Drive. But when her stepmom checked on her around 3:45 a.m., she was gone.

"It just started out she was missing; then it was
abducted," said David Jones, the girl's grandfather. "Then it was just a
lot of crying and stuff, and it was hard to understand what they were saying."

Youngblood said that the girl's father, 29-year-old Ray Coriell, left for work Wednesday morning around 3:45 a.m.

According to the 911 tape obtained by 23ABC, the girl's stepmother would turn
back on the alarm after her husband left the house.

911 Call (Edited) - 8-Year-Old Missing Girl Found 9 Miles From Home

Afterwards she would go and check on all of her children, she said in the 911 tape.

While checking on the children, she noticed the 8-year-old missing.

New details in suspected rape and kidnapping case
Updated: 8/05 6:45 pm
Just hours after Ray Coriell's 8-year-old daughter was found kidnapped and raped in an east Bakersfield dirt field, detectives say Coriell failed a lie detector test.

Newly released detective reports indicate Coriell showed a high probability of deception to questions asked about him having sex with his daughter. But they didn't arrest him then. Indeed, the investigation really began to unfold as Coriell was holed up inside his home the next day threatening suicide.

As he held the sheriff's SWAT team at bay, detectives received cellphone GPS records pinpointing Coriell's location near that field the morning his daughter was abducted. As deputies waited for him to surrender, detectives got the arrest warrant that accused him of kidnapping, rape and attempted murder.

Coriell was taken to sheriff's headquarters for questioning. Detectives say that is when Coriell broke down, revealing he was raped for 4-years when he was 9. He said he never got counseling. Coriell said the abuse caused him to have blackouts in which he forgot where he had been or what he had done.

He said he had such a blackout the morning his daughter went missing and didn't snap out of it until his wife called him on his cell phone to tell him to come home immediately and help with the search.

Questioned by detectives, he said he had a partial memory of sitting next to a sofa in a field, and hearing a child's voice -- but couldn't remember whose voice, or what he had done. Reports say the little girl said she awakened under a couch in a weedy field.
But Coriell said he just heard voices in his head and he had a bad feeling when he got home, bad memories and bad feelings.

In his interview detectives noted Coriell didn't admit to the sexual assault but he didn't deny it either. After being taken to Kern Medical Center by ambulance Coriell's daughter was interviewed at the Jess Diamond Center by a social worker.

The girl said someone got her out of the house, grabbed her by the neck and put her in a gray truck. She told the social worker she went to sleep several times but never revealed if she remembered being sexually and physically attacked. She remembered was waking up under the couch and screaming for help.

During his interview detectives asked Coriell: if his daughter were sitting right next to him what would he say? Coriel said he would apologize. I loved her, he told detectives. There is no way to explain how sorry I am, nobody deserves to go through that.

Detectives also asked Coriell about an incident days before his daughter went missing in which someone wrapped up a hair straighter in a towel and placed it next to the girl's bed. The towel caught fire but Coriell returned home just in time that morning to unplug the device and take it outside.
http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/New-details-in-suspected-rape-and-kidnapping-case/ATjumLfVJ0SJvQSnnf5Oiw.cspx

Report: Dad Had Blackouts During Alleged Kidnapping, Rape of Daughter

POSTED: 6:03 pm PDT August 8, 2011
UPDATED: 10:04 am PDT August 9, 2011

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- More information is being released about the man accused of kidnapping,
raping and attempting to kill his daughter. 23 ABC has obtained investigation reports with statements
from the victim, her father and his polygraph test.

While an army of law enforcement scoured the
area around the 8-year-old girl's home on July 27, investigation
reports say the girl's father, Ray Coriell, never asked deputies the
status of his daughter and was "acting as if everything was normal."

In a statement, Coriell's son said the girl told him the night before her
kidnapping that she had a "funny feeling someone" was going to "take
her."

In the police reports, the girl said she could not make out who kidnapped her or
hurt her but did remember sleeping, someone taking her out of the house,
grabbing her by the neck and stuffing her under a couch.

She remembered being put in a gray Chevy truck, similar if not identical to the family truck, according to the court documents.

She said she remembered waking up under a couch, screaming and pushing the
couch to get out from under it, according to the court documents.

She said she drifted in and out of consciousness several times before
finally getting up and walking in search of food, water and help,
according to court documents.

Six hours after the kidnapping, the girl was found walking in a dirt field
on Eucalyptus Drive in east Bakersfield -- nearly 10 miles from her home,
according to court documents.

According to the reports, investigators asked if she
was afraid of getting someone in trouble by talking to them, she
replied, "My stepmom wouldn't ever do that to me. So if it was probably
somebody else, yeah I would get them in trouble."

The day after the kidnapping, Coriell was supposed to show up at the Sheriff's Office
for a polygraph test at noon, deputies said. Instead he barricaded
himself in his bedroom, which contained several shotguns, and sent his
wife suicidal text messages, deputies said.

In one text, he said, "I deserve to die," and told her he was the victim of a sexual
assault by his cousin when he was younger, according to court documents.


He also wrote several letters. One addressed "To God," said,
"forgive me father for I have sinned," according to the court documents.


He also wrote a letter to each of his children saying "I miss you," according to court documents.

The documents indicate Coriell had not been to work all week because there
had been a small fire at his house two days before the kidnapping,
caused by someone who wrapped a towel around a hot hair straightener and
put it under the girl's blanket in her room.

During Coriell's polygraph test, detectives said Coriell showed signs of lying.

According to the documents, Coriell told detectives he has fits of rage,
blackouts and memory loss whenever he has flashbacks of his childhood
sexual abuse.

Coriell told an investigator the hair straightener fire possibly occurred during
one of his blackouts, according to court documents.

According to the documents, he also told investigators he had a flashback of his own
abuse the night he was with his daughter, saying he remembered standing at the
girl's bedroom door looking into her room and then everything "went black." Next thing he
knows, "I remember my wife calling me, and I was talking to her, and I
looked around where I was at, out in a fricking field," said Coriell.

According to the documents, Coriell said he has blacked out while driving and
ended up at strange places. He said he did not remember driving eastward
when leaving for work but did notice an odd street sign possibly
indicating he was going in the wrong direction.

In the documents, Coriell said he could not recall how the victim got into his truck but said, "I think I heard a cough."

Coriell said he recalled hearing a voice, nudging a couch and tossing a couch
pillow while in the field. He also remembered hearing a loud voice
similar to a child, according to the documents.

When asked if he knew he did something wrong, he replied, "I felt I thought I had done something," according to the documents

In the documents, when the detective asked Coriell, "Are you sorry for
what happened?" Coriell said, "Very sorry." The detective asked Coriell,
"Are you going to be able to promise her you will never sexually
assault her again," according to the documents. Coriell was crying and
said "I hope so. I hope I can."


http://www.turnto23.com/central/28806130/detail.html?source=bak

"Are you going to be able to promise her you will never sexually
assault her again," according to the documents. Coriell was crying and
said "I hope so. I hope I can."

He needs to be in prison for life. That way he won't have to "hope" he can not rape his daughter again.