One arrested for suspected kidnapping and assault
Destin Johnson, 27, of Kent was arrested and booked into Grant County Jail for the suspicion of kidnapping and assault of a man last week. Johnson supposedly offered the victim an opportunity to warm up in his car in Ephrata before kidnapping him for two days, assaulting him and leaving him in a remote area.
FILE PHOTO
MOSES LAKE — The Grant County Sheriff’s Deputies arrested a suspect, Destin Johnson, 27, of Kent on suspicion of kidnapping and assault of a man last week.
Deputies say the victim and Johnson knew each other and this was a targeted crime. The investigation is ongoing.
The adult victim told GCSO that late April 6 he was behind the Ephrata Safeway when a vehicle drove up to him and the occupants of the car told him to get inside to warm up. Once the victim was inside the vehicle, the driver threatened to kill the victim if he tried to exit the vehicle.
The victim then said he was taken to a residence in Moses Lake where he was kept under the master bed on the property. The victim said he was tased, hit with a baseball bat, threatened with a gun to his head and physically assaulted for the two days he was held.
“He was held against his will,” GCSO Public Information Officer Kyle Foreman said. “He was not able to leave for two days, and over the course of two days, was assaulted.”
The victim said that three days later, April 9, he was taken to a deserted rural area where he was assaulted with a baseball bat and a shovel and left there. The victim began walking and a citizen gave him a ride to the Columbia Basin Hospital. The Ephrata Police Department gathered the victim’s statement.
“The victim was harmed, and detectives are still investigating the case,” Foreman said.
Then the following Friday, two days later, the victim was at a store on Stratford Road in Moses Lake when two of the kidnapping suspects drove up. The suspects tried to force the victim into the car and the victim sought help from the store clerk who called the police.
Through the investigation, the suspect was arrested Friday morning while rummaging through trash cans on Castle Drive in Moses Lake. He was booked into Grant County Jail for first-degree kidnapping and second-degree assault.
The responding agencies were Ephrata Police Department, Moses Lake Police Department, GCSO and Multi Agency Communications Center.