Police said their investigation began around 5:25 p.m. on Feb.10, when officers responded to a call about an injured man in an area near train tracks, houses and a city water tower in Coolidge, a city of about 13,000 people about 55 miles away. outside of Phoenix. The caller reported that the man was losing consciousness.
When officers arrived, they found a man, later identified as Mr. Soules, with his hands tied behind his back with a belt and a purple handkerchief “stuck in his mouth,” according to police. A photo from the Police Department showed the man with his hands tied as he lay on his side on the ground.
Soules told officers that after completing an errand that morning, he returned to his home, where two masked men abducted him near his vehicle, hit him on the back of the head and knocked him unconscious, according to the arrest report.
The men, according to Mr. Soules, “took him away in a vehicle before leaving him in the area where he was found,” police said. Mr. Soules was taken to a hospital, where he was evaluated and interviewed by the police. According to the department, he told investigators that he had been kidnapped because his father had a large amount of money hidden all over the desert.
For days, detectives tried to investigate his account, including reviewing surveillance video of the area and interviewing the people he mentioned. Hospital records showed Soules did not have a concussion or head injury, according to a police report, and the text messages reviewed by detectives did not show any messages or phone calls that had been described.
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