JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Screams for help were coming from what’s believed to be a black 4-door sedan in the Southpoint area. JSO is investigating a suspicious incident that started at the Courtyard by Mariott near Phillips Highway, it happened early Wednesday morning. Several callers say a woman could be heard calling for help.
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“Help! Help! Help!” the woman can be heard yelling.
Cell phone video of the incident was given to Action News Jax, it captures the screams and you can hear at least two voices.
“They’re kidnapping me!” the woman screams multiple times.
“Ain’t s*** wrong with her,” another woman says right after.
Terron Reeder-Williams took the video and said he called 911.
“I see the door open, the passenger side door opened, and you could see someone’s arm out,” he said. “Looks like they tried to get out of the vehicle, then it closes.”
He also yelled out to the car in question.
“Better let her go! Call the police” he said.
The video shows the car pulling up to a stop sign, then driving off. Reeder-Williams said the car came back a second time before the police showed up. In his mind, he believes it was a kidnapping.
“Maybe I could’ve done something a little more like what happened to the girl, is she okay now?” he said. “Did something bad happen?”
A police report says at one point a woman was seen leaving out the side door of the hotel alone. Later, it describes a woman wearing a white long-sleeve shirt and light-colored shorts going out to the parking lot near the vehicle in question, adding she was with another woman wearing a white dress with curly red hair.
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Another witness told police they saw a man driving with two women in the car.
Action News Jax law and safety expert, Dale Carson has decades of experience in law enforcement, he said it’s unclear what exactly was going on in the video and in the incident, but if there was an abduction we would know by now.
“The car doesn’t drive off at a rapid pace,” he said. “In circumstances like this, a car that actually kidnaps someone is going to frankly, silence the victim because they don’t want any attention.”
Action News Jax wasn’t able to find any missing person reports through JSO’s crime map, we also called the hotel and a front-desk worker told us the potential victim wasn’t staying there. Police searched for the car in question the morning of the incident but weren’t able to find it.
JSO said this is still an active investigation and will be following up on leads. The car in question is believed to be a black 4-door sedan, anybody with information is urged to call the police.
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