N. Bay homeless man arrested when injured woman found in his car

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A man was arrested in Santa Rosa Sunday after allegedly beating a woman and dragging her into his car, police said.

Photo: Bill Hutchinson

A Santa Rosa man was arrested Sunday after bludgeoning a woman with a blunt object, dragging her into his vehicle, and attempting to drive away, officials say.

Officers were called to the area of Montgomery Drive and Second Street, near Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital ^[1], on reports that a man was assaulting a woman by hitting her repeatedly with a blunt object shortly before 9 p.m. Sunday, according to the Santa Rosa Police Department.

The witness told police the man had dragged the woman — apparently unconscious after the beating — into a car and fled, police said.

Officers stopped a vehicle matching the description given by the witness about a mile away, on Fourth Street near Farmers Lane, according to police.

The man, 55-year-old Robert Dean Holladay ^[2], told police he was alone in the vehicle but officers found a weapon in the front seat and an unconscious woman with serious injuries on the floor in the back of the vehicle, police said.

Holladay was arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and attempted murder, and the woman was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries, police said.

The suspect and the victim both are homeless and had been living out of separate cars near each other, but the specifics of their relationship and a possible motive for the crime remained under investigation, according to police.

Holladay is being held on $1 million bail at the Main Adult Detention Facility ^[3] in Santa Rosa, according to county records.

Filipa Ioannou ^[4] is a San Francisco Chronicle ^[5] staff writer. Email: fioannou@

sfchronicle.com Twitter: @obioannoukenobi ^[6]