A Honduran national stands accused of a heinous act of human smuggling and sexual assault after allegedly kidnapping a Chinese woman and holding her captive in Harris County. According to court documents referenced in a report by KHOU, Jose Carcamo, 22, was arrested on Monday in east Harris County and is now facing charges of aggravated kidnapping.
The victim, who was taken from New York, was purportedly held without food or water for at least five days, enduring multiple assaults by Carcamo, who is said to have kept her locked in a closet. The disturbing details of the crime emerged when the victim, in a bid for freedom, screamed for help, prompting a witness to call authorities. Carcamo, subsequently picked her up and carried her back into the premises. During an initial court hearing, prosecutors requested a bond of $75,000, but after reviewing the evidence, the judge increased the bond to $150,000 and mandated Carcamo to avoid contact with the victim if released. Carcamo is also on an ICE hold for illegally entering the United States.
In a separate account by KPRC, Lt. John Klafka of the Harris County Sheriff's Office described the broader implications of this case, emphasizing the suspicion that this incident is part of a larger human smuggling and sex trafficking operation. Klafka pointed out that Carcamo is unlikely to have acted alone, noting, "He obviously is not the one that drove her from New York," and added, "So there's that, he's not the person that drove her from the first location in Houston. And, we know there's other people involved."
The rescue of the victim occurred after authorities, responding to the 911 call on Elderberry Lane, were misled by a man claiming to be a worker at a mechanic shop on the property. It was only upon obtaining consent to search a trailer home on site that deputies discovered the woman, following a faint knocking sound from a closet that had been forcibly shut with a board screwed into the framing. The victim, finding herself in a foreign land without friends or family, is now safe and receiving counseling and medical care. "This is a very traumatic event," "So we've got to do everything we can to ensure that she can trust us to do our jobs and find the rest of the people that are involved in this," Klafka told KPRC.
