Woman safe after spectre of abduction in Stoney Creek
Small family-owned hotel became centre of police investigation; one man charged so far
It’s the kind of police call that sets a whole community on edge.
The initial details are sparse and scrambled: the possible abduction of a young woman. From a Stoney Creek bus stop? Or was it from a motel? Pulled into a vehicle by four men? She might be 17. Or maybe 20.
There is conflicting information in our newsroom from scanner chatter and initial calls to Hamilton police. But slowly — at least it feels slow when the possibility of an abduction looms — facts emerge.
Just before 7:30 a.m. Thursday police are told of a possible abduction taking place. There is also a call about an assault at the Stoney Creek Motel at Highway 8, between Gray and Green roads in Stoney Creek.
Later, the woman will be found unharmed and one arrest will be made.
Our newsroom first learns of the abduction call at about 8:30 a.m. and reporter Nicole O’Reilly begins making calls.
By 11 a.m., I’m with photographer Gary Yokoyama at Station 20 in Stoney Creek where investigators are meeting. Media officer Const. Steve Welton is pulled out of a training session to handle the flow of information.
Over at the motel, there are three cruisers, a plain-door car and the forensics van in the parking lot as rain beats down hard.
The 26 small rooms are rented by the day, by the month and everything in between. Not a lot of cars parked here though. Instead, cabs come and go frequently.
Uniformed officers and a detective cram inside the tiny office.
Police issue their first news release at 11:20 a.m., saying the initial report was “that a female … was taken against her will” by “multiple” men in a vehicle. There was no evidence of a weapon.
She was described as 21, with light-black skin and dark hair.
The men were driving a 2012 black Dodge Journey.
It also says the men caused a disturbance at the motel, then assaulted a male employee before leaving with the woman.
Police spotted the vehicle driving east on the QEW toward Fifty Road, but it refused to stop for officers.
The motel owner’s son could not be friendlier. He has asked that his name not be used, out of concern for his privacy and safety.
His family has owned Stoney Creek Motel for a decade and many of their guests stay long term.
He says the alleged abduction took place somewhere else — not at the motel — and that someone else called police about it. But when a Dodge Journey showed up at the motel around 7:30 a.m. and the men inside it began making a commotion, his father, who lives at the motel, told them he was calling police.
His father, who is 70, emerges from a back room, a fresh cast on one wrist and a hospital band on the other.
He says one of the men pushed him and he fell. He tried to break his fall with his hand and fractured his wrist.
The son says police took their security video which shows a woman with the men outside.
At 11:36 a.m. Welton issues an update: “Police locate woman safe.” A 20-year-old man from Hamilton is in custody, charged with flight from police and drive disqualified. “Additional charges may follow.”
A man and woman emerge from a motel room, the strong odour of pot following them as they hop in a waiting taxi.
A few doors down, roofer Robert Baker, 42, has a day off.
He and his wife have lived in their tiny room for a year and a half. When she left for work at 6 a.m., all was quiet. When he put the trash out at 10, there were five cruisers in the lot.
The motel is usually “fairly quiet,” he says. And the owner and his son are very nice.
“If I’m a little late with the money, they let me go.”
While the story changed and developed over the day and it is still unclear whether this really was an abduction, it seems a better outcome than what may have been.
Police issue their first news release at 11:20 a.m., saying the initial report was “that a female … was taken against her will” by “multiple” men