Bakersfield, July 30: Veronica Coriell expressed shock Friday that her ex-husband allegedly kidnapped, raped and tried to murder their 8-year-old daughter.
She never saw it coming, she said.
“Did something happen along the line that made him not be right in his head?” Veronica Coriell said Friday morning. “Maybe he snapped somewhere.”
Ray Coriell, 29, was arrested Thursday night after a seven-hour standoff with Kern County deputies. Coriell barricaded himself in his home near Belle Terrace and Highway 99 when deputies rolled up around noon. He had sent text messages to his wife, the girl’s step-mother, that indicated he wanted to hurt himself.
The sheriff’s department said Coriell was arrested on a warrant for kidnap, rape and attempted murder. Eyewitness News asked Sheriff Donny Youngblood why the father is accused of attempted murder.
“The injuries to the child were such that we believe that he may have been trying to kill her,” Youngblood said Friday afternoon. “And may have, in fact, thought she was dead when he left.”
The girl, who lived with her father and stepmother, was reported missing from her bed at around 4 a.m. Wednesday, prompting a search of the city. She was found six hours later walking barefoot and alone about nine miles from home.
Hear the full 911 call: Panicked stepmother calls about missing girl ↓
Isaias Duarte lives on Eucalyptus Drive, where the girl turned up. He said his neighbor’s gardener saw the girl and brought her to him for help.
“She said she was hungry,” Duarte told Eyewitness News on Wednesday. “My wife gave her something, I think a banana to start, but then she started throwing up everything.”
Duarte said the girl was quiet, sad and had a bruised face.
Sheriff Youngblood elaborated on the injuries. “Head trauma to the eye,” he described. “The eye was almost swollen shut (and) black. Several abrasions and bruises throughout the body,” He added that the child suffered injuries from the sexual assault.
The sheriff said during the standoff Thursday at the family home, investigators had “developed information” leading to the arrest of Coriell. He would not say what, if anything, Coriell has said to officers.
Youngblood said technology helped in the investigation. “The cell phone Mr. Coriell was carrying gave us clues to his whereabouts in the early morning hours,” the sheriff explained.
After the child was found in the area of Eycalyptus Drive, investigators had searched a large field area. Youngblood would not say what evidence was found there. But added he believed “the assault and sexual assault probably occurred at the location in far east Bakersfield.”
Officers have reported the girl was being cared for at Kern Medical Center, and on Friday they confirmed she is in “protective custody.” They said four children in all from the Coriell home are now in protective custody.
The sheriff’s office is seeking charges of kidnapping with the act of rape, kidnapping with intent to commit rape, sexual intercourse with a child under 10 and attempted murder. Corielle is being held on $1 million bail.
Sheriff Youngblood said the child is now in good condition, but he qualified that. “At least physically,” he said. “Emotionally, we may not know for years.”
–Agencies