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MIDVALE — Four people were arrested and a woman's life was possibly saved thanks to police from several jurisdictions who worked over the weekend to track down the victim, eventually finding her by tracing her cellphone.
The woman was kidnapped in Midvale at gunpoint by her estranged husband and taken to an area near Heber City where she was told, "Now you're going to see what is going to happen to you," according to police.
The incident began Saturday night when Gilverto Alvarado-Hernandez, 58, of Herriman, called his estranged wife to invite her to dinner, said Unified police detective Ken Hansen. She agreed and he picked her up at her sister's house in Midvale.
But as soon as she go into the car, Hernandez started to drive very fast. He got onto the freeway "and drove up canyons," according to a Salt Lake County Jail report.
"Gilverto told (her) several times she will see what will happen to her," the report states.
The woman began texting a friend in Salt Lake City stating that her estranged husband was holding her at gunpoint, threatening to kill her and driving her a long ways away, Hansen said.
Unified police officers were sent to Hernandez's house in Herriman to see if she was there. While an officer was holding surveillance on the house, three men pulled up in a vehicle — one of them armed — and started looking around the house to see if a door was open and then began breaking windows, Hansen said. That officer called for backup and arrested the men at gunpoint.
Detectives were still investigating Tuesday whether the trio went to the house in an attempt to rescue the woman on their own, Hansen said.
At one point as Hernandez and his estranged wife were still driving, he allegedly got into a struggle with her and tried to take her phone away. In doing so, a wound that the woman had from a surgery on her stomach just three days earlier ripped open, according to the report.
Investigators continued to look for the woman by pinging her phone. Early Sunday, Hernandez's car was tracked to Wasatch County near Strawberry Reservoir where Utah Highway Patrol troopers pulled it over and arrested Hernandez for investigation of aggravated kidnapping. The estranged wife was taken to a hospital in Heber City.
