Opinion ID: 165225
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Whether Gabaldon held Dale for a benefit

Text: 23 Gabaldon next claims that the evidence was insufficient for the jury to have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that he held Dale for any benefit. Our cases interpreting the statutory requirement that the victim be held for ransom or reward or otherwise, however, have repeatedly observed that the statute demands only that the holding of the kidnap victim fulfill some purpose desired by the captor. De Herrera v. United States, 339 F.2d 587, 588 (10th Cir.1964); Sarracino, 131 F.3d at 947. See also Walker, 137 F.3d at 1220 (finding the accused's holding of his victim in order to have the opportunity to convince her to remain in a relationship with him to be a sufficient benefit); Diane M. Allen, Annotation, Requirement, Under Federal Kidnapping Act (18 U.S.C. § 1201(a)), that Person be Held for ransom or reward or otherwise, 71 A.L.R. FED. 687, 690-92 (2004) (summarizing rule that statutory language or otherwise can be satisfied by showing the victim was held for any purpose or benefit to the accused). 24 In Sarracino, the victim of a prior battery was induced to get into a car with the promise that he would be taken to the hospital, only to have his former assailant take control of the vehicle, drive the victim to a remote area, and kill him. On these facts, similar to the case now before us, we found the very lax benefit requirement was met where the victim's assailants benefited, in terms of seclusion and a higher chance of secrecy, by moving [the victim] to the lonely mountain where they continued to beat him and then left him to die. 131 F.3d at 947. Given the evidence presented in that case, we held that a reasonable jury could infer that the defendants wished to dispose of [the victim] in a location where a body was unlikely to be detected. Id. 25 The same principles are squarely applicable here. The government introduced evidence at trial that Gabaldon decided not to leave Dale where he and Begay first took her out of the car out of fear that Dale would be found too quickly. Keeping Dale in the car also gave Gabaldon the opportunity not only to kill her, thereby eliminating the possibility that she would identify him as one of her assailants in the initial beating, but also to try to eliminate evidence tying him to the battery and subsequent murder by having Begay burn Dale's fingers to destroy any of Gabaldon's DNA that might have been deposited there. We find, therefore, that there was sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Gabaldon benefitted from transporting Dale in his vehicle, both because it provided greater secrecy in disposing of her, and because it gave him a chance to destroy evidence that would incriminate him. 26