San Jose State student made up kidnapping, police say

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A student who told investigators she was kidnapped from her San Jose apartment and forced at knifepoint to drive hundreds of miles north to Oregon fabricated what would have been a harrowing ordeal, police said.

The 22-year-old female San Jose University student was found running down a road in southern Oregon Friday night on the eve of her graduation. On Tuesday, she told the San Jose Police Department that she had made it all up.

A spokesman for the department said police would refer the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office for possible charges. He did not identify the woman.

She had told the Coos County Sheriff’s Office in Oregon that a stranger abducted her in San Jose — beating her before forcing her into her car.

It wasn’t immediately clear why the woman lied, but police Tuesday said no suspects were sought, adding that she recanted all of her claims.

She told the sheriff’s office in Oregon that she had escaped from her imaginary captor — a stranger — when her car ran out of gas, hiding in tall grass for hours until night fell.

The woman was found by a passing motorist around 10 p.m. Friday at Highway 101 and Prosper Junction Road in Bandon, Ore. — more than 500 miles from where she said she was kidnapped in San Jose.

The woman had described her abducter as being in his 30s with no facial hair, wearing a black hoodie, black baseball hat and black winter gloves.

San Jose State University police opened an investigation when the the woman’s family arrived for her graduation and she failed to meet them.