Tooele Man Arrested, Accused Of Kidnapping And Sexually Assaulting Woman

TOOELE, Utah – Police arrested a man Monday after a woman claimed she was taken against her will, drugged and sexually assaulted.

Casey Ray Nielsen, 36, was booked into jail on suspicion of aggravated kidnapping, rape, aggravated sexual assault and use or possession of drug paraphernalia.

Tooele Police Sgt. Jeremy Hansen said the officers learned about the case after responding to a call from a mother who was concerned about her daughter.

Hansen said when police found the 22-year-old woman she claimed that she had been kidnapped around Thanksgiving.

According to court documents, the woman told officers she had been taken to a room inside a detached garage with her head covered in a pillow case and her hands tied with a rope.

“The victim stated Mr. Nielsen had a handgun on top of a safe in the room and he was blocking the entry of the room and she was not able to leave,” a probable cause statement read. “The victim stated Mr. Nielsen gave her several injections of an unknown substance while she was there.”

The statement said the woman recalled Nielsen undressing her and then grabbing her to move her, but could not remember what happened next.

According to the document, she said she woke up in pain.

“The victim stated Mr. Nielsen covered her face once again with a pillow case before leaving the residence,” the statement read. “The victim stated Mr. Nielsen put her inside a white car, and while driving near the area of Heritage Hill Dr., she pulled on the steering wheel, causing Mr. Nielsen to crash the car and she was able to run from Mr. Nielsen.”

Hansen said officers were still actively investigating.

A search warrant affidavit stated another man allegedly tied up the woman and took her to Nielsen.

“It’s a heinous case,” Hansen said. “(I) can’t imagine what the victim’s gone through, but we still need to talk to those other people in order to see what they saw.”

Tanisha Magness, who lives at the home where the woman claimed the crime occurred, said Nielsen was a friend of her ex who had asked to “crash” there for a few days.

She said she had seen the alleged victim in a “closet” in the detached garage, but was not aware of the crime until officers showed up to her house later with a search warrant.

“He was like, ‘hey, look what I found,’ as like a joke or whatever,” Magness recalled. “He opened the closet out in my garage and was like, ‘this is my friend,’ and I was like, ‘oh, hi, nice to meet you.’”

Magness acknowledged the woman appeared as if she was possibly undressed beneath a blanket.

“I noticed pants on the floor and noticed that she had been covered with a blanket and I was like, ‘that was kind of awkward,’” she remembered. “Like, you should wait until somebody’s dressed before you introduce them.”

Magness said she did not observe the woman being brought to the house against her will or leaving suspiciously.

Though Magness said her sister eventually asked Nielsen to leave because he scared her nieces, she expressed doubt that the woman was kidnapped because the woman didn’t say anything to her when she had the opportunity.

She said she thought at the time the two may have simply been getting high together.

“I’ve known him for years and he’s never done anything inappropriate to me,” she said. “I don’t feel that she was kidnapped in any shape or form.”

Magness, however, said she was aware of Nielsen’s prior history.

According to court records, Nielsen was accused in 2016 of holding another woman captive for two weeks inside the same home before she said she was able to escape.

In that case, Nielsen ultimately pleaded guilty to felony drug possession and a weapon charge in exchange for the dismissal of an aggravated kidnapping charge.

That same year, records show a woman in Salt Lake County accused Nielsen of rape, but that case was ultimately dismissed.

“I would welcome him back if my nieces didn’t live here,” Magness said. “I told him that he makes my nieces uncomfortable. I told him that we were still friends. That was before the search warrant was served.”