A man held a woman in the United States against her will for nearly a year, before the latter was able to free herself in a strange story that sparked public and media attention.
US media, including CNN, reported that the woman, whose identity was not revealed, was kidnapped about a year ago while she was traveling across the United States, but she managed to escape her captor dramatically.
The woman managed to escape after preparing a plan to escape towards a gas station in New Jersey.
The judicial authorities charged James Barillo, 57, with kidnapping a woman he met in New Mexico last year, before traveling with her to New Jersey, where he attacked her at a property the two rented in Burlington County, state.
The owner of the gas station, Bobby Modan, said that a woman rushed to his station on February 7, and he heard her screaming. He said she closed the door after entering the shop attached to the station.
He added that he saw a man running after her, but when he failed to enter the store, he left.
The woman was shocked and crying inside the store and begged for help, according to the eyewitness.
Later, the US police arrested the suspected man, and authorities charged him with kidnapping, among other charges.
It turned out that during her detention, the accused strangled the woman repeatedly and threatened to kill her family members if she left the place where she was being held.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office stated that the accused had engaged in similar aggressive behavior in other states, and was using pseudonyms in his movements.
The relationship between the two began after Barillo introduced himself as a person named Brett Parker in New Mexico, asking her to help him travel to Arizona.
After a month of consensual relationship between the two, things began to turn around, as he took advantage of her phone and spent money from her debit card, and physically assaulted her in California, where she felt unable to escape from him, as she reported to the authorities.
Finally, he put a collar on her, preventing her from making calls to her parents when they were together.
And in New Jersey, the man rented a room in a house, where he locked her up.
But it is not clear why the woman did not resist her captor during all this time, and how her family did not feel that she had been in hiding for a year.