3 charged in kidnapping called 'just bizarre' by Lake Elsinore police

LAKE ELSINORE - Three men have been charged with kidnapping and assault in a case worthy of a cult movie plot.

A 48-year-old Lake Elsinore woman has accused the three of abducting, beating and dumping her in Mexico late last month.

The accused are the 45-year-old man the woman had been living with and two of his friends, said Detective Joe Greco of the Lake Elsinore Police Department. Greco said one of the men is nicknamed "No Nose" because his face is disfigured from a gunshot wound suffered years ago.

Special to The Press-Enterprise
Donald Darcy Turk
Hours after being left battered and bruised, the woman reappeared on her boyfriend's Lake Elsinore doorstep demanding that he pay her $300 fare for a cab ride from the U.S-Mexico border.

"It's like something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie," Greco said. "The whole thing is just bizarre."

The woman, whose name was not disclosed, told police that her live-in boyfriend of about three years, Donald Darcy Turk, 45, and two of his friends abducted her Aug. 25, Greco said.

"He's been violent toward her in the past," Greco said of Turk, adding that police had been called to the couple's home before on reports of domestic violence.

"They hatched this plan to get rid of her because she's a pain to the boyfriend," Greco said. "They all just said she was a nag."

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Robert Paul McCabe
The woman told investigators that her boyfriend, along with Robert Wayne "No Nose" Gardner, 47, and Robert Paul McCabe, 38, a man who had been doing work around the couple's house, kidnapped her from the garage on a Saturday morning. They used duct tape and handcuffs to restrain her, Greco said.

The woman was driven across the border, and when she was crying at one point, one of the men stomped on her head, Greco said.

The men threatened to kill her, Greco said, but instead beat her up and dumped her near a Rosarito Beach motel.

Apparently, Greco said, the woman was able to connect with the Mexican federal police, who gave her a ride to the border, and there she persuaded a taxi driver to take her to Lake Elsinore.

When the woman got home, she confronted Turk.

Special to The Press-Enterprise
Robert Wayne Gardner
"She made him write a check for the cab," Greco said. Turk then left for his ex-wife's house in Redondo Beach, where a birthday party for one of his children was planned.

The next day, the girlfriend reported the incident to police, and investigators arrested Turk at the party, Greco said. McCabe and Gardner were also arrested Aug. 27.

McCabe confessed, Greco said, but Gardner denied kidnapping and beating the woman, saying they were all drinking at the beach in Mexico together and just left her there.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to all charges, court records show.

Turk's arraignment is scheduled for next week.

Neighbors told investigators that they heard a lot of noise coming from the house the morning of the abduction. When a neighbor later asked Turk about his girlfriend, Greco said, "He said he got rid of her in Mexico, and that she wouldn't be coming back."

Turk posted $50,000 bond and was released Aug. 27, jail records show. McCabe and Gardner were still in jail Monday.

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