Husband hears screaming as wife’s co-worker kidnaps her outside Texas home, FBI says
A Texas woman was kidnapped right outside her home prompting a widespread search by authorities, officials told news outlets.
The Stafford Police Department received a distressing phone call of a woman screaming, followed by gunshots at around 6 a.m. on Sept. 27, investigators said at a news briefing streamed on YouTube by KHOU.
As the woman was leaving for work, a group of kidnappers grabbed her outside her home, investigators said.
Her husband heard screaming and saw her struggling to break away from three men. He rushed to help, but one of the kidnappers pulled out a gun and backed him down, according to investigators.
The men forced the woman into her vehicle and drove away, along with a black Ram pickup truck, authorities said.
Moments later, the husband’s phone rang. A private number was calling and he answered, he told investigators. The voice on the other end demanded money, or they would hurt his wife, officials said.
Stafford police reached out to the FBI and the bureau’s Houston office stepped in to assist.
Investigators began combing through camera footage, searching for the woman’s vehicle and the black Ram neighbors saw parked nearby at the time of the kidnapping, officials said.
A camera captured both vehicles driving through Sugarland, one following the other. Local police deployed drones to search the area and found the woman’s vehicle, investigators said. It had been abandoned, and there was no sign of the black truck.
But investigators discovered the identity of the truck’s owner and went to his workplace, officials said. He was no stranger to the woman he is accused of kidnapping, investigators said, he was her co-worker.
His address was listed in Galveston, on East Beach.
Galveston police were notified and officers began observing the man’s home, according to investigators. They saw the black truck and a woman inside of it, tied upwith her head covered.
A man was sitting behind the wheel; another was perched behind it; and a third stood away from the others on top of a sand dune, acting as a lookout, per investigators.
Officers moved in, rescued the woman and arrested five people, officials said.
The FBI’s Houston office credited the successful rescue to its “crisis negotiators, investigators and linguists,” working in cooperation with local authorities.
“Our highly trained team handled the situation in a way that gave Stafford investigators and Galveston police officers time to locate and physically rescue the victim,” the office said in a Sept. 28 Facebook post.
The co-worker, his wife, and three other men are accused of kidnapping the woman, according to investigators. They were booked into the Galveston County Jail and are awaiting transfer to Fort Bend County, where the kidnapping took place.
It’s not clear why the woman was targeted.
Stafford is a suburb of Houston, roughly 20 miles southwest of the city’s downtown.
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