On the evening of May 21, 2000, the sheriff's department in Humboldt County, Nevada received a report that a man had assaulted a woman in a red and silver GMC truck on Grass Valley Road. The responding deputy found a truck parked on the side of the road. A man was smoking a cigarette beside the truck, and a young woman was sitting inside it. The deputy observed skid marks in the gravel behind the vehicle, leading him to believe the vehicle had come to a sudden stop.