A University of West Georgia senior says sharing her phone location with her boyfriend helped police find the man who abducted her about 50 miles west of Atlanta.
According to local news reports, on Sept. 4, 2017, around 11:30 p.m., the student was leaving a grocery store when a man held a knife to her, forced her into her car and told her to drive toward Atlanta. She says he sexually assaulted her before they got back on the road.
She says the man then claimed he needed money and planned to rob a gas station in Michigan. She told him she could not guide him without her phone to look up directions. Once she had it, she quickly shared her location with her boyfriend, Tamir.
The man did not realize she was texting. He took her phone away and put her in the trunk while he tried to rob the gas station, but the attempt failed. “He then told me he was going to rob a Walmart or a Kroger to get the money,” she said.
When he gave the phone back, she kept texting her boyfriend. She says she led the man to a Kroger, where he put her back in the trunk. He returned quickly after spotting a security guard in the parking lot and decided to sleep in the car until morning.
Tamir went to the police station and gave officers the make and model of her car. Using her shared location, police were able to follow real time updates. An Atlanta police officer canvassing a parking lot spotted a car matching the description. The driver tried to get away, hit four cars and a parked patrol car, then crashed into a fence. The student ran to police, and the man fled on foot into a field.
Ten hours later, authorities arrested a man identified in jail records as Timothy. He was charged with kidnapping, hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault, rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment and aggravated assault against a police officer.
Made to order and shipped to your door.
He is in jail awaiting trial. The charges are allegations and he has not been convicted. His public defender did not respond to a request for comment.
