SAN JOSE — A San Jose State University student who claimed she was kidnapped at knifepoint and forced to drive to Oregon over the weekend told investigators in an interview Tuesday that she made it all up, authorities said.

The 22-year-old woman, whose identity was not disclosed, was spotted by a passerby at about 10:18 p.m. Friday “frightened” and running on a road near Bandon, a small city on Highway 101 along the Oregon coast, about 90 miles north of the California border.

She told Oregon law enforcement officers she was set to take part in SJSU’s graduation ceremony Saturday morning. The university confirmed the woman is a student at the school, but did not verify her graduation status.

On Tuesday, the woman told San Jose Police Department investigators she wasn’t kidnapped or forced to drive 500 miles north to Oregon.

“During the interview, the victim recanted the allegations and stated that she fabricated the entire incident,” said San Jose police Sgt. Enrique Garcia. “The community is not at risk and no suspects are wanted in connection with this investigation.”

Coos County sheriff’s Sgt. Kelly Andrews said the woman was interviewed on two separate occasions by his agency’s investigators.

Deputies located the woman’s Honda sedan shortly after she was found, near Bullards Bridge and Highway 101.

The woman told the Coos County Sheriff’s Office that she had been kidnapped about 10 hours earlier from her apartment complex in San Jose, and escaped on foot after her car ran out of gas and came to a stop. She also said she ran into a high-grass area and hid for an hour or two.

The Sheriff’s Office deployed its K-9 unit to search the area for a suspect Friday night but did not find anyone.

The woman was taken to a nearby hospital and treated for facial injuries; she told deputies that her kidnapper hit her.

According to the Sheriff’s Office, she described her assailant as a clean-shaven mixed-race black and Latino man in his 30s, wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black baseball cap, and black “winter style” gloves.

The woman was housed at the Coos County Women’s Safety and Resource Center until her family arrived Saturday to take her back to the Bay Area. The family initially grew worried when they arrived in San Jose to meet her for graduation and she was not there, the Sheriff’s Office said, and they contacted university police and San Jose police.

University police first took a report, then handed it over to San Jose police, because the reported kidnapping did not occur within the university police department’s jurisdiction.

Once SJPD’s investigation is complete, the case will be forwarded to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office to review for possible criminal charges against the woman, Garcia said.



The car was at an abandoned lumber mill on the banks of the Coquille River, and the woman was found several hundred yards to the south, near Highway 101 and Prosper Junction Road.