Page "Cantua Creek, California" Paragraph 4

On August 19, 2000, actress Anne Heche drove from Los Angeles to Cantua Creek near Fresno, CA, and parked her Toyota SUV near a dusty roadside.

Wearing only a bra and shorts, Heche walked 1½ miles through the desert before knocking on the door of a stranger's ranch house.

When the home's resident, Araceli Campiz, opened the door, she immediately recognized Heche from the film Six Days Seven Nights.

" I was thinking, ' Oh my God, we're in the middle of nowhere ,' " recalled Campiz, " and she walks in.

" Heche gulped down glass upon glass of water, " took off her Nikes and said she needed to take a shower ," said Campiz, who obliged, offering her a towel.

Refreshed, Heche, who, as far as Campiz could tell was neither drunk, drugged nor ill ( although Heche later admitted she had taken ecstasy ), plunked down in the living room, requested a pair of slippers ( and suggested Campiz don the same ) and settled in.

" She wanted to watch a movie ," said Campiz, " but the VCR was broken.

" Bemused at first, Campiz grew uneasy when Heche showed no sign of leaving — calling neither friends nor a garage — after half an hour had passed.

" I didn't know what to do ," Campiz said.

" So I called the County sheriff's department.

" " When deputies arrived, Heche told them that she was " God, and was going to take everyone back to heaven ... in a spaceship ," according to a police report that was aired on NBC.

The deputies summoned an ambulance, which ferried Heche the 50 miles to Fresno's University Medical Center, from which she was released after a few hours.