Prosser woman wakes up to a stranger with his hand on her throat and mouth

A 57-year-old woman woke up in her Prosser apartment with a stranger standing over her with one hand on her throat and another on her mouth.

Benton County court documents don’t explain how Alex C. Zambrano-Carrasco, 28, allegedly got into the Meade Avenue apartment sometime during the night on Sept. 5.

But when the woman woke up, he allegedly said, ‘shh” before pulling off her bed covers and molesting her, say investigators.

The woman yelled at him to leave and he fled, taking with him a cellphone, $40 in cash and a credit card. She ran to a neighbor’s to call police.

The next day, he allegedly assaulted another woman he didn’t know in a room at the Best Western Inn in Prosser. Court documents show police connected the cases based on security camera footage reportedly showing Zambrano-Carrasco and his vehicle.

They tracked him to Sunnyside where he was arrested on Sept. 7, court documents said.

He is charged with first-degree burglary, indecent liberties, second-degree theft and fourth-degree assault. The burglary and the assault were done with sexual motivation, court documents said.

Bail was set for $150,000, and his trial is Nov. 3.

Zambrano-Carrasco had previous felony convictions from 2021, for burglary, malicious mischief and trespassing. He was sentenced under a drug offender sentencing alternative, receiving treatment for a drug addiction.