Three guilty in naked abduction of family

Hallucinogenic tea may have been involved

LEDUC, ALTA. • Three people have pleaded guilty after being charged in a bizarre naked kidnapping case that may have involved hallucinogenic tea.

Two women and one man, who cannot be identified due to a publication ban, each pleaded guilty in Leduc provincial court Monday to unlawful confinement. One of the women, who is 36, also pleaded guilty to dangerous driving. Sentencing is scheduled to take place Dec. 20.

RCMP have said that three members of a family were forced from a home south of Edmonton, and into a car with several naked people inside, on Nov. 6.

Officers were tipped to the drama after receiving a call about a crash between a car and a truck near Nisku.

Inside the truck, they found the three victims — a man, his adult daughter and her baby — who had apparently been rescued by the truck’s driver. And inside the car were five people — four naked, including two youths. No one was hurt.

The two teenage sisters were not charged. Their father told The Canadian Press at the time that the girls had been having breakfast with his ex-wife and a married couple. He said it’s believed the group unknowingly drank some hallucinogenic tea that was brought back from a recent overseas trip.

The father said the girls didn’t remember what happened. And he did not know the name of the tea.

“Whatever potency that stuff had obviously is making it so it’s just a big blur,” he said.

“It’s a scary thought thinking, ‘Oh, let’s try this tea that we purchased.’ And then all sit down thinking they’re just going to have a nice morning and end up in that circumstance.”

The victims also said last year that they knew the accused as neighbours and they were all members of the same Jehovah’s Witnesses church.

They said that one of the female suspects had shown up at their front door, with her clothes on, acting frantic. But with her were four others who were naked.

The family said they were forced out of the home and into a BMW. The man was allegedly put in the trunk and his daughter and her baby in the car with the others.

At some point while the car was moving, the family said the man managed to jump out of the trunk.

As the car slowed, the woman and her baby then managed to get away. The three were then picked up by a passerby in his truck, but the truck was then allegedly rammed by the car.