commentary by Patrick H. Moore
Although the occasional lucky soul appears to find true love without much difficulty, many other folks go through endless romantic/sexual encounters without ever managing to forge a successful and lasting relationship. We can probably assume that these individuals generally have positive experiences in the early stages of their relationships before they founder upon the shoals of “bad romance”. (According to at least one definition, a “shoal” is “a sandy elevation of the bottom of a body of water, constituting a hazard to navigation.”)
Then there are relationships in which the “good times” appear to have been of very short duration, and are quickly replaced by “bad times” which may last for a considerable period of time and are characterized by cruel or sadistic treatment of one partner at the hands of the other.
An extreme example of this sort of awfully bad relationship occurred over the last 18 months in the small south-central Idaho community of Buhl. Buhl, which has the honor of being located on the old Oregon Trial is often called the Trout Fishing Capital of the World .
This awfully bad relationship, which has been reported by numerous local and national media outlets, had little if anything in common with trout fishing, healthy outdoor living, or anything, for that matter, that smacks of the natural, the normal and the socially acceptable, and, in fact, in some ways, reminds us of Ariel Castro and his vicious treatments of his three kidnap victims.
In this case, the unidentified 27-year-old female victim appears to have entered into what was initially a consensual relationship with a 36-year-old man named Oscar Ayala-Arizmendi, whose bad habits included smoking crystal meth, approximately six months before Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight escaped Ariel Castro’s clutches. (Why is it that chronic crystal meth use makes people so god-awful cruel and crazy, mean like a snake, if you will?) The relationship soon turned sour, and two weeks after escaping in early April, the victim reported her abuse to the local authorities.
Laura Zuckerman of Reuters writes:
A 27-year-old woman told county sheriff’s detectives that Arismendiz imprisoned her for 18 months in two separate houses in a small farming community west of Twin Falls by keeping her “drugged up on meth,” and by beating her with a hammer or threatening to chop her into small pieces and flush her down the toilet if she tried to escape, according to legal documents.
The woman told authorities she broke free in early April with the aid of her brother and three others, who used “force and some deception” to extract her with only the clothes on her back..
She told detectives Arismendiz began mistreating her, raping her and denying her access to the outdoors and others soon after she began living with him.
He “forced her to smoke meth as much as two or three times a week … and often would place rope around her neck and lead her around the house ‘like a dog,’” a Twin Falls County detective said in a sworn statement.
Detectives who searched Arismendiz’s home reported “numerous chains and locking devices mounted on walls and lying in various rooms,” boarded windows and a wiring system designed to deliver “a high level of electrical current” to anyone who sought to escape, according to legal documents.
In addition, the victim reported that at times Arizmendi would hold a gun to her head.
Based on further information provided by Sara Malm of The Daily Mail, it appears that after the unidentified victim came forward with her gruesome tale, Twin Falls County law enforcement officials moved quickly into action:
Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs said on Thursday that following the woman’s report, police worked to collect enough evidence to make the arrest.
Authorities searched the house near U.S. Highway 30 and reported finding chains and locks mounted to walls and floors, chains on exterior doors, a handgun, and an electrical wire system intended to shock anyone trying to escape.
The woman told the investigators that “she believes she left the home three or four times over the past six months,” but would always return on threat of harm or death.” She explained that the failed escape attempts resulted in additional beatings and that at night, Ayala-Arizmendi would lock them both in his bedroom that he would secure with a metal gate fastened and locked to the inside of the door.
The victim reported that because of this, she had no choice other than to use a wastebasket as a toilet, and a Detective Koning did report that detectives found a metal waste can with urine in it.
The authorities have also reported that they photographed a bruise on the woman’s leg that she explained happened the day she escaped.
Detective Koning also reported that the house also had security cameras mounted around it, with (you guessed it) monitors in the bedroom.
In essence, the victim told investigators that among all the other indignities she was forced to endure, she was Ayala-Arizmendi’s sex slave and was forced to perform sexual acts, shackled or with a gun to her head.
Ayala-Arizmendi has been charged with first-degree kidnapping, rape and possession of a controlled substance. His bail was set at $1 million and his next court appearance is scheduled for May 23.
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The instinctive reaction to this kind of case is to denounce the perpetrator as an absolute fiend, a despicable excuse for a human being who should be punished to the full extent permissible by law, and I’m relatively certain that if convicted, Ayala-Arizmendi will be sentenced to decades, or possibly life, in prison, a sentence I fully support.
Nonetheless, I can’t help but wonder why the victim got involved with this loser in the first place. A mere glance at the available photos suggest a cruel and vicious individual, not the sort of guy a sensible woman would become involved with, and certainly not the charismatic sociopath type who famously lures innocent, unsuspecting women into their clutches. (Of course, mug shots almost always present defendants in a bad light.)
Was there a self-esteem issue on the part of the victim, and possibly hard drug use, prior to meeting the lover who turned into her tormentor? Had she perhaps previously been a victim of abuse stemming from other individuals in her life? Because I don’t have the facts, I can only conjecture. At least she’s free of him now. Hopefully, she will seek the therapeutic help she undoubtedly needs to help her come to grips with the trauma she’s undergone. And if she is willing to dig deeper, this young woman may be able to begin to understand the forces and negative life experiences that may have led her to take up with Ayala-Arizmendi in the first place.