Woman arrested on kidnapping, assault charges
Published 1:15 pm Friday, November 4, 2022
BAKER CITY — Members of the Baker County Narcotics Team arrested a Baker City woman Wednesday, Nov. 2 on multiple felony charges, including first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping.
Heather Aimy Mae Winston, 30, was arrested as members of the Northeast Oregon Regional SWAT team arrived at 1690 Indiana Ave., Baker City, to conduct a warrant search of the home.
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Winston was leaving the home and police stopped her vehicle, according to a press release from Baker City Police Chief Ty Duby.
On Thursday, Nov. 3, the Baker County Grand Jury indicted Winston, a convicted felon, on six counts:
• Two counts of first-degree kidnapping, a Class A felony.
• Coercion, a Class C felony.
• Third-degree robbery, a Class C felony.
• Fourth-degree assault, a Class A misdemeanor.
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• Menacing, a Class A misdemeanor.
Judge Matt Shirtcliff in Baker County Circuit Court set Winston’s bail at $350,000. She could be released by posting 10% of that amount. Winston is scheduled to enter a plea on Nov. 17 at 1:30 p.m. in Baker County Circuit Court.
Winston was convicted of second-degree robbery in Baker City in 2019 and sentenced to 36 months in prison.
She was released from Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s women’s prison, on Oct. 29, 2021, and had been living at 1690 Indiana Ave., according to Duby’s press release. Winston is on probation.
Police obtained the search warrant after they “became aware of an incident involving narcotics and violent crime occurring in Baker City,” according to the press release.
SWAT team members interviewed three people during the search at 1690 Indiana. Two were released, and a third, Robert M. Metz, 37, was arrested on Malheur County warrants unrelated to the incident in which Winston is charged.
“The investigation is ongoing into possible co-conspirators and more charges against other individuals are anticipated,” according to Duby’s press release.
The circumstances of the incident that led to the charges against Winston are detailed in a probable cause affidavit from Baker City Police Sgt. Wayne Chastain.
The investigation started when Chastain and Duby met on Tuesday, Nov. 1 at the Baker County Jail with an inmate.
The inmate told Chastain and Duby that a few weeks earlier he and his girlfriend, along with Winston and another man, drove to Pendleton to buy fentanyl. According to the affidavit, Winston had sold a boat and wanted to use the money to buy fentanyl.
The inmate said the group bought fentanyl and then drove back to La Grande, where police stopped their car, arrested Winston and seized the fentanyl.
About a week later, the inmate said, he was with his girlfriend at his grandmother’s home in Baker City.
He said Winston and a man came to the home, threatened him and his girlfriend with a revolver and told the pair to get in their car or they would hurt the inmate’s grandmother.
Winston and the man drove the inmate and his girlfriend to 1690 Indiana Ave., where, according to the inmate, Winston and several other people assaulted him and his girlfriend and another man who had also been in the car in La Grande when police confiscated the fentanyl.
The inmate said Winston broke a chair over his girlfriend’s head, causing a cut, cut her hair off with a knife and slapped her face, giving her a black eye.
The inmate said Winston and two other men wouldn’t let them leave the home until they had repaid Winston for the fentanyl, and threatened them with a double-barrel shotgun.
The inmate said he offered to steal tools from a Baker City shed as partial repayment for the fentanyl. According to Chastain’s affidavit, a Baker City resident reported the theft of tools, as the inmate described, in the early morning of Oct. 25.
The inmate said that when he returned to 1690 Indiana Ave. after stealing the tools, his girlfriend had secured $200 through a cash app and given it to Winston. Later that morning, Winston drove the inmate and his girlfriend to his grandmother’s home and let them go.
The inmate was arrested later that day in Baker City and has been in the jail since.
Chastain wrote in his affidavit that he and Duby, after interviewing the inmate, talked with his girlfriend and his grandmother. The girlfriend corroborated most of the inmate’s account.
Chastain wrote in his affidavit that the inmate’s girlfriend told him that the day after the alleged assault at 1690 Indiana, she had contact with Baker City Police officer Justin Prevo, who asked her about the injuries to her face. She said she told Prevo she had been in a fight.
Prevo confirmed the story, and told Chastain that he had body camera footage of the conversation.
The inmate’s girlfriend also told Chastain that a couple days after the incident at 1690 Indiana, Winston and a man came to the home where she was staying and stole a duffle bag and other items.