Manhunt scours mountains for suspect, possible hostage

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) - Police continue to comb a mountainous area of northern New Mexico in search of an armed suspect and a woman who may or may not be a hostage.

The manhunt is focused about five miles south of Angel Fire where Joseph Rodriguez, 25, was last seen running from his abandoned car with the 21-year-old woman.

State Police suspect the woman, identified as Mariah Voight, 21, may have been taken away at gunpoint and is being held as a hostage. Taos police, however, say she may be an accomplice.

A second woman stayed with the car and was not harmed

State Police say Rodriguez was a passenger in the car with two women Wednesday afternoon when Taos County sheriff's deputies and Angel Fire police tried to arrest him on a parole violation.

But the car sped off with one of the women behind the wheel.

Police believe Rodriguez threatened the driver, and a chase began.

Officers eventually called off the chase calling for the help of State Police.

When officers caught up with the car about 20 minutes later it was out of gas. The driver was inside the car, but Rodriguez and the other woman were gone.

"He told his father that he wasn't going to go back to jail," Lt. David Maggio of the Taos Police Department told KRQE News 13. "So that tells me, you don't want to go back to jail, that you're going to do anything to avoid it up to maybe killing somebody."

Rodriguez, who also goes by the nickname "Joker," may be armed with two handguns, a stun gun and a knife, according to State Police.

While he was originally wanted on a parole violation, a string of charges including DWI, burglary, and fleeing an officer are now pending.

It's unclear how he knew the two women he was with.