Rape Victim's Call Leads to Rescue

[Jeff White]

Well despite all the tin foil hat warnings in the Legal and Political Forum about cell phones giving the .gov the ability to instantly track someone, it took a while for them to find this victim.

It appears she was ambushed while locking up the store. I'm sure that the fact her attacker was known to her as one of the people who came in after she left and cleaned the building caused her drop to her guard.

What should she have done to prevent this? She's 17 and in MO you have to be 23 to get a CCW...
http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/ne...F2E661BBC220243F862570620013B0B4?OpenDocument

Rape victim's call leads to rescue
By Heather Ratcliffe
Of the Post-Dispatch
08/18/2005


Police in Creve Coeur spent almost five hours early Thursday in what they feared was a life-and-death race to find a kidnapped teenager who sneaked in a call to 911 but didn't know where she was.

The 17-year-old was repeatedly raped and sodomized by her captor while officers from Creve Coeur and Florissant pieced together clues that led to her rescue on the rooftop of an office building, officials said.

"There's no doubt in my mind he was going to do her in," Florissant Police Chief William Karabas declared later. "This guy planned this for a while. This was not a spur-of-a-moment thing."

The victim is a high school student who worked a night shift at the Cold Stone Creamery at 14013 New Halls Ferry Road in Florissant. She received hospital treatment for rape and being shocked with a stun gun.

James E. Bridges Jr., 26, of Maryland Heights, a janitor for a company that cleans the ice cream shop, was charged Thursday with 12 felonies, including rape, sodomy and kidnapping.

Police said the girl's ordeal began about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday as she was closing the store and Bridges was arriving. Investigators said he shocked her on the neck with a stun gun and shoved her into his car.

The attacker drove her to a four-story brick office building in Creve Coeur, and the two climbed the steps to the roof. About 11:20 p.m., he briefly left her alone; police were unsure why.

That's when she called 911 from her cell phone. A Creve Coeur dispatcher answered the phone. That alone was an important clue: The call would be routed to the closest answering point. She was in or near Creve Coeur.

The girl said she had been kidnapped from the ice cream store in Florissant. She also said she recognized her abductor as a janitor there, but did not know his name. He had taken her to the roof of an office building but she did not know where.

"She was trying to describe as best she could what she could see," Karabas said. But the only landmark she recognized was the sign at a Drury Inn hotel in the distance. Officials surmised it was the one at Olive Boulevard and Interstate 270, but that would be visible for some distance to perhaps hundreds of commercial rooftops.

"He's coming back. I've got to go," the girl said before she hung up.

Creve Coeur police notified Florissant and began checking dozens of office buildings and parking garages. "They did what they could but came up with nothing," explained Creve Coeur Police Chief John Beardslee.

Damp weather with poor visibility kept St. Louis County police helicopters grounded.

Just after midnight, the girl's parents called Florissant police to report her missing. They had found her car at the closed store.

Investigators methodically went to work to build one clue on top another.

They reached the manager of the ice cream shop who gave them the name of the cleaning company.

They reached the cleaning company, which gave them the name of the employee scheduled to clean the store and a list of other locations on his schedule. It included 680 Craig Road, one of more than a dozen professional buildings in the Creve Coeur Executive Office Park, about one-half mile east of the Drury Inn.

While Maryland Heights police rushed to check the suspect's apartment in the 12300 block of Shoreridge Drive, officers from Creve Coeur and Florissant headed for the office park. They noticed movement on the roof, Beardslee said.

A different janitor unlocked the door for police, who searched the two tiers of the roof. They found Bridges and the girl about 4:10 a.m. The suspect surrendered without resistance.

Bridges is charged with five counts of forcible sodomy, three counts of forcible rape, three counts of sexual abuse, two counts of third-degree assault and kidnapping. A judge set his bond at $1 million.

Police praised the victim for her quick thinking in terrifying circumstances.

"We're all pretty fortunate that she could make a phone call," Beardslee said. "It could have been quite some time before anyone would have discovered her."

Reporter Heather Ratcliffe:
E-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 314-863-2821

 

[Smurfslayer]

I have to feel for the victim. It's too bad the perpetrator didn't suffer a tragic fall off the roof top.

I hate to consider monday morning quarterbacking this young woman's actions. I sincerely hope for and wish her a full recovery both emotional and physical.

I hope she never faces anything like this again.

I think that stabbing the attacker with a bic pen, or similar innocuous object would be a viable option.

 

[Jeff White]

Smurfslayer,
I'm not suggesting we Monday Morning Quarterback the girl's actions. But I think there are lessons to be learned here. The situation this girl was in wasn't a good one to start with. Where I work, unless we're on a call, we're outside with the squad car when the two teenage girls who close up the last business at night lock up. But a bigger city like Creve Coeur probably doesn't have the resources to provide that kind of service. Across the country there are probably thousnds of people in her position every night.

I'm just asking what the forum members think they would add to the precautions one should take. Personally I think the girl did good. But could she have done better?

Jeff

 

[griz]

Not sure what she could have done to prevent it. Some stores refuse to have more than one employee when the workload is light, so other than quitting you are kind of stuck with a dealing with customers one on one. Once kidnapped, she is left with whatever she has on her plus improvised weapons. Lots of things can be used for stabbing, but it does require some strength plus an offensive mindset. My best guess is there was something on the roof she could have used to bash his head in when she heard the scum returning. Again the same two caveats apply.

Second guessing aside, she did a good job with what she had to use. I wish her well.

 

[Zaire]

Actually, a guy here was robbed and put in his trunk while the guys who did it went for a joyride in his car. He called the police from his cell and they found him within 20 minutes.

 

[Hardtarget]

My daughter...I think I'd be there when she closes. I know that isn't a viable option but you'd like to think it could be done. Maybe he'll find out what it was like for that girl when he gets to prison every day for twenty years!
Mark.

 

[Sam]

I suspect that someone on the board could nickle and dime this one to death, but to me it sounds like she probably did all she could. She made it to the hospital alive, thats plenty good for the curcumstances. Most teen gals don't do well with the discipline it takes to become a good fighter so I think that any serious MA training is out as a reccomendation. I wouldn't have trusted either of my daughters with a pistol at 17, and knives take determination to use. ?????

Happy the young lady is alive, sorry it happened

Sam

 

[Technosavant]

I am from the STL area, and familiar with the locations mentioned.

This girl was NOT abducted from the city of Creve Coeur. Her workplace was in Florissant, in northern St. Louis County (CC is in West County and about a 15-20 minute drive from her workplace).

Being 17 years old, firearms are right out for her self-defense. Due to the laws of the land, they just aren't an option. The things which come immediately to mind are of no fault of her own:
1) She should never have been closing that store alone. The manager/owner of that shop needs a smack upside the head.
2) The janitorial company needs to screen its employees better and provide more oversight. This may not have prevented this, however.
3) At no time should she have been the only worker in the store alongside this punk. Apparently he had been stalking her for a while to set this up, but the opportunity (him being alone with her) should never have presented itself.

Closed Circuit cameras are good for only one thing: finding perps after the face. People tend to forget that they are not a major deterrent to crime; once a perp has been apprehended, the damage has been done. I have yet to hear if CCTV was in use there (doesn't seem to be necessary; they caught the bastard in the act), but that is often the only security measure taken in such shops.

Teenage girls should never be left to close shop alone. That may be sexist, but it is a fact of life.

 

[Sam]

Technosavant,
The remark was not sexist. I will further it by saying that no lady should be in that position. Only a society as lacking in morality as our own would allow it.

When I was younger we didn't put ladies in such predicaments so often.

Sam

 

[Sinsaba]

The only thing that strikes me is that she could have left her phone connecte to the operator (after she called) and put the phone out of sight.

I could be wrong but I am pretty certian with a constant signal, they could have tracked it.

 

[Denko]

Hopefully this guy will draw a judge that understands the crimes committed.Otherwise the guy will get concurrent sentences instead of consecutive sentences.I don't know MO's laws,but I assume he will get half-time in prison.He should do every day of 100 years.

 

[Byron Quick]

I could be wrong but I am pretty certian with a constant signal, they could have tracked it.

While it is possible to do this...I seriously doubt if the agencies involved had the technical equpment and expertise to do so. Bringing in the equipment would probably have taken long enough to make it futile.


She did pretty well under the circumstances. Having her close up alone comes under the heading of lack of resources...not morality.

Often, businesses are not opting to go for greater profits when staffing fewer employees for lighter business traffic. Rather, they are opting for survival.

I once had an employee who was totally illiterate. He couldn't read a ruler, a map, or road signs. Main duty was driving a delivery truck. I couldn't send him alone on a delivery to an area unknown to him. He was all happy about an increase in the minimum wage. Until I told him that the increase meant that he no longer had a job. Wasn't going for greater profits. Just trying to keep a business afloat.

 

[foghornl]

It is good that the young woman came out alive...but not unharmed. She will be carrying the scars on her psyche long after the physical damage has healed.

Again, no sexist point here is intended...it is just a fact that women should NOT be closing up a shop alone.

I am a reasonably good-sized guy, 6'-3" & about 225, and I would not want to close up alone. There are simply too many Looney Tunes out there.

 

[p35]

Don't most modern cell phones have built in GPS? I know mine and my wife's do, although I've never figured out how to use it to navigate. I thought the whole point of that feature was to make the phone (and owner) fast to find in an emergency.

 

[308win]

I don't know what she could have done. Resistance could have gotten her killed quicker. She could/should have been carrying OC spray and known how to and be prepared to use it; that might have bought her a few minutes.

 

[JERRY]

The remark was not sexist. I will further it by saying that no lady should be in that position. Only a society as lacking in morality as our own would allow it.

this sums it up better than any other post here.

 

[CAnnoneer]

If all the scumbags are either dead or in jail, it would not matter what time a 17-year-old lady would close shop by herself. We need a change in the justice system that truly takes care of the scumbags, permanently.

The real problem is to fight and win the argument about value of human life, where it is made clear that such scumbags inherently do not possess the same rights and the same life value as law-abiding citizens. I'd like to see an expansion of the death penalty in that direction.

Simply put, every _innocent_ life may be precious, but the life of such scumbags is not. I wonder what kind of problems we have to develop as a society before the majority finally stands up and faces the music on this issue. :banghead:

 

[JERRY]

I wonder what kind of problems we have to develop as a society before the majority finally stands up and faces the music on this issue.

it would have to happen to the schumers, clintons, fiensteins, boxers, et cetera before opposition to justice was served.

but since they hide behind armed bodyguards, they will never have to suffer the crimes that they allow to happen to others.

 

[pax]

The remark was not sexist. I will further it by saying that no lady should be in that position. Only a society as lacking in morality as our own would allow it.

I agree. No lady should be disarmed by stupid laws. If she's old enough & responsible enough to be closing a shop by herself, she's old enough to carry a gun.

Would a gun have helped in this instance? Yes, I think so. If he left her alone for a moment -- with her cell phone, no less -- odds are she could have dug out her firearm rather than a phone. She then could have met him with the gun when he returned, from a position of power, and not as his helpless plaything for the next five hours.

But as everyone says, that's fantasy, not real life.

In real life, the girl did danged well to survive the encounter, and did great to keep her wits about her. Certainly an unexpected attack with a taser, from someone she'd worked with and possibly had come to trust somewhat, would be very hard to defend against. So the usual advice of fighting back right away wasn't in the cards for her. She did the next best thing -- waited for an opening and used what she had to work with when she got that opening.

It's just too bad that she had to use a phone instead of an effective weapon. No lady should ever be put in such a position. Only a society as lacking in morality as our own would allow it.

pax

I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand. -- Susan B. Anthony