Island County won’t file charges in Coupeville kidnapping case

Island County prosecutors have decided not to file charges in a Coupeville kidnapping case that began with an 8-year-old girl meeting a Seattle-area vacationer alone at night and ended with police, firefighters and a bloodhound searching for her across South Whidbey.

The March 23 incident moved quickly from Coupeville to a dark, muddy wooded area about 20 miles away before the man brought the child back to town. By then, the girl’s mother had reported her missing, and deputies had arrested the man on suspicion of kidnapping. He spent the night in jail before investigators and prosecutors concluded they could not meet the criminal standard needed to file charges.

Island County Chief Criminal Deputy Prosecutor Laura Twitchell wrote in a notice of charging decision that sheriff’s office investigators had not provided enough evidence to prove the required element of kidnapping: an intentional abduction. Under Washington law, abduct means restraining someone by secreting them in a place where they are not likely to be found or by using or threatening deadly force. Prosecutors said the facts were deeply troubling, but not enough to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the law had been broken.

The child’s account also shaped the decision. According to the case materials, she later described the man as a nice person and called the ride a nice 30-minute drive. Prosecutors and sheriff’s officials said that, in the record before them, they could not point to any criminal statute they believed had been violated, in part because lawmakers likely did not anticipate a scenario like this one.

The man admitted to smoking marijuana next to the girl while they were together. Deputies also found a knife and condoms on him. Even with those facts, the case did not produce the evidence prosecutors needed for a kidnapping charge, and there was no judge finding probable cause.

A child forensic interview and a medical exam were part of the follow-up investigation. Because no charges were filed and no probable-cause finding was made, the man is not being named.

For Island County, the case leaves a public-safety problem that is larger than one arrest: a frightened family, a missing-child search that spread across the county, and a legal threshold that prosecutors said the evidence could not clear even after an encounter that alarms any parent.