An Arizona man has been arrested in connection with a the kidnapping of a 75-year-old woman in Pearce and the murder of her 67-year-old boyfriend.
The Cochise County Sheriff’s Office said they were contacted shortly after 8 p.m. on Friday by the woman, who said that she had been in her workshop behind her home that afternoon when a man came in wearing a mask and dark clothing and pointed he gun at her.
He brought her inside the house, where he blindfolded and restrained her.
“The victim said she heard several loud noises a short time later but was unaware of what was happening,” the sheriff’s office said. “After dark, the male subject moved the victim to her own vehicle, a 2007 silver Chevy Avalanche, placing her in the back seat.”
When the suspect stopped the vehicle, apparently at a Dollar General Store, and went inside, the victim escaped her restraints and the vehicle and ran to a nearby home for help.
When deputies arrived, she told them what happened and asked them to contact her boyfriend at her home to let her know she was being treated for minor injuries but would be all right.
Deputies could not get an answer at the door, and when they entered, they found the boyfriend dead.
Investigators identified 37-year-old Rynn Prairie-Rocca as a person of interest, although they did not say how, and the next morning issued a shelter in place for a neighborhood where a barricaded subject was located. Later, they announced it was Prairie-Rocca and he had been taken into custody.
Police did not say what charges he faces or if he was known to the victims.
