CAMARILLO : Hurt Woman Tells of Leap From Truck

A 34-year-old woman who was found on the side of the road with severe head injuries last week has told police that she was injured when she jumped out of a truck traveling about 45 m.p.h. in Camarillo.

Rita Calloway of Oxnard was found on Santa Rosa Road near Morongo Drive in the early morning hours of June 8 with a skull fracture, said Lt. Joe Funchess of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

Detectives, who could not talk to the woman as she floated in and out of consciousness, surmised that she had been pushed out of a car or beaten with a blunt object. Police originally thought that the case might have been linked to the beating of Michelle Green in Ventura on May 5. But Funchess said that possibility was ruled out almost immediately.

Calloway told police that she met with four men in a parking lot next to the Lemon Tree Motel, where she lives, in the 500 block of Meta Street in Oxnard, Funchess said.

They got into a pickup truck and headed toward Camarillo. In Camarillo, Calloway decided that she did not want to continue on to Simi Valley and tried to tell the men to return to Oxnard, Funchess said. The men, who did not speak English, did not understand her, Funchess said.

Calloway panicked and jumped from the truck, Funchess said.

Calloway told police that she did not know the names of the men and had no way to contact them, Funchess said.

She is in stable condition at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard, a hospital spokeswoman said.

The investigation has been closed, Funchess said.