Alberta woman jumps through glass window to safety in South Carolina
Police say an Alberta woman lured to the United States with a promise of modelling work was instead held against her will in a trailer and jumped through a plateglass window to escape.
“She sure did,” Creed Hashe, chief deputy in Pickens County, S.C., said in a telephone interview Friday.
Hashe said there was no answer when officers arrived at the trailer’s door, but they heard a scream and someone running inside seconds before the woman dove through the window into the front yard.
“She was treated and released at a local hospital. Her and her family are on the way back to Canada. She’s doing great in consideration of everything she’s been through,” he said.
Police said the woman, described only as being between the age of 18 and 25, flew to Atlanta last week for what she believed was a modelling job and had been talking with the accused for a couple of months.
He agreed to pay her $15,000 for her work which would not involve “nudity or acts of sexual behaviour,” said Hashe.
He said the accused paid for her airline ticket to Atlanta and picked her up.
Police allege she was held captive and sexually assaulted after he threatened her safety and the safety of her family in Canada. They said the ordeal lasted five days, but she was allowed to contact her family via Facetime as her captor watched. Somehow she was able to signal her location and give clues that she was in danger.
Her family contacted the RCMP who notified local authorities. They managed to track the couple by using cellphone signals.
“There were some authorities in Canada who started that process. After we were notified, we started the technology down here,” Hashe said.
“The information we were receiving back was bouncing between multiple counties, so there was a delay in locating them because they were moving in a vehicle.”
Police said they broke into the barricaded trailer where they found a suspect in a rear bedroom. They say he held deputies at bay with a knife to his own throat before finally surrendering.
“A lot of times I guess people put too much confidence in the Internet or social media. Sometimes they get lured into things that are not as legit or as genuine as they wanted them to be,” Hashe said.
“Unfortunately, it’s a target-rich environment for people who are trying to prey on people that they can lure into their schemes and criminal activity.”
Fred Russell Urey, 38, of Norris, S.C., is charged with kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct.
Hashe said Urey was known to police but only for previous drug arrests.
“When you start talking about charges for kidnapping and criminal sexual conduct, in South Carolina those are extremely serious offences,” he added.