ACTIVE SEARCH Woman Kidnapped in SC Escaped in NC, Police looking for Suspect

HORRY COUNTY, SC (WMBF) – Police asked the public’s assistance finding a masked gunman who kidnapped a woman working at an Horry County convenience store early Sunday morning. The woman was later found unharmed in North Carolina.

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The man took the 28-year-old clerk by force, did not take any money or items from the store, and the two left in her car, a silver 2002 Mercury Sable. Authorities located the woman around 7:30 a.m.

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The business owner arrived to show officers surveillance footage of the suspect, who was wearing dark jogging-style pants with a green stripe, a black jacket with a red zipper, a black hat and a red bandana covering his face.

In the video, the suspect is seen grabbing the victim by the upper arm after jumping over the counter. He took her keys from her purse and led her out of the store at gunpoint.


An officer noticed a black Shimann bike on the walkway near the front entrance and a 24-ounce Budweiser can, which were collected as evidence.

While police were on scene, the victim called a family member to say she escaped. She told police the suspect had forced her into the trunk of the car. She said she was able to get out of the trunk when the car stopped at a Sun Do store in Columbus County, NC and called police.

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Gardenista said:

how scary

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Gardener1850 said:

Very scary.

I wonder if this was someone she knew, since he didn't take any money from the store.

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Gardenista said:

They got a decent shot of him, so it seems like she would be able to say if she knew him.

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The woman said she was in the store's bathroom when she heard the door chime.

"When I came out, nobody was in the store so I went to go wash my hands and get my hand sanitizer and as soon as I took one step behind the counter when I was putting on my sanitizer, that’s when I saw him coming," she said. "I made eye contact with him first and then I saw the bandana on his face. I immediately knew no good was about to come from that situation."

The man hopped over the store's counter and put the gun to the back of the woman's head and asked for her car keys, she said.

"I point down to where my car keys are in my purse. He takes my keys, nothing else," she said. "Just my keys and then leads me out of the store to my car with a gun to the back of my head. He put me inside of my car in the driver’s seat and I begged and pleaded, 'Please don’t hurt me. Please don’t hurt me,' because I’m a mom. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my baby at the end of the night. He said, 'I don’t want to hurt you. I just want this,' and he slapped the inside of my car. I was like, 'You can have it, you can have it,' and he was like, 'No, you’re driving.'"

She said they stopped in an empty parking lot in Surfside Beach, where she was forced into the trunk at gunpoint. At that point, she didn’t know what the man’s plans were.

“He was like, ‘I don’t want to hurt you. I just have to take care of something. I have to take care of something,’” she said. “He said that he wasn’t going to hurt me, he wasn’t going to hurt me. But I think he was a liar. I don’t think he would have let me live when he got to where he was going.”

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Gardener1850 said:

[h=3]Police release sketch of suspect wanted for kidnapping woman from Surfside Beach convenience store[/h]

The woman said she’s never seen him before and she doesn’t know who he is.




http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/35...g-woman-from-surfside-beach-convenience-store

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