DANGEROUS CUPPA
Naked kidnap suspects had drunk ‘trippy tea’
Royal Canadian Mounted Police called to the scene of a collision in an industrial park in Nisku, south of Edmonton, Alberta, at around 10am on 6 November found a BMW sedan that had collided with a pickup truck. Inside the car were five people, all naked despite snow on the ground and the temperature about 10˚C below zero (14˚F).
A family relative explained that his daughters, aged 15 and 13, were having breakfast that morning with his ex-wife and two friends, a man and his wife. The man offered them some tea he had brought back from India, which sparked the “whole crazy spell”, according to the relative. Two adults and a six-week-old baby were taken from a nearby residence and forced into the BMW about 20 minutes before the crash. The male victim – who had been stuffed into the trunk (or boot, as we call it in UK) – managed to escape from the moving car. Minutes later, so did the woman, holding the baby.
A passerby noticed the man on the side of the road and stopped to pick him up. The woman and baby followed shortly after. The good Samaritan was later identified as an employee of Leduc Plumbing and Heating by the company co-owner Derek Scott. “Apparently they came out of the ditch with no shoes on, so he stopped to see, obviously, if they needed help,” Scott told CTV News. “It’s the middle of the winter and people running around with no shoes on – you
“The guy had to do the walk of shame in front of everybody...”
stop to help them.” After the three people climbed into the Samaritan’s truck, Scott said, “the unclothed people in the BMW” drove up behind the truck and “rammed him from behind”. The force of the collision pushed the truck into a ditch.
Shortly after they arrived on the scene, police and firefighters removed the five suspects from the car, handcuffing them. “There was no covering,” said Scott. “The guy had to do the walk of shame in front of everybody, then two more women did the walk of shame in front of everybody… then the one lady was the last to be removed – she put up the biggest fight… It was a pretty wild fight. It took five people to get her out.”
No one was injured. The relative said all involved knew each other and the couple who had been forced from their home bore no grudges. Everyone belonged to the same Jehovah’s Witness church. None of them could remember what had happened. “Whatever potency that stuff had obviously is making it so it’s just a big blur,” said the relative, adding that blood tests were taken at the hospital, but the ‘tea’ remained unidentified. (The Gang of Fort speculate that it was datura).
Three adults – a 35-year-old woman, a 30-year-old man and his 27-year-old wife – were charged with kidnapping and resisting arrest, while the teenage sisters were released without charge. Court records show that the 35-year-old woman was subsequently charged with impaired driving, dangerous driving, causing property damage over $5,000 and four counts of assault with a weapon (a car). All three have been released from custody, but their identities cannot be revealed due to a publication ban.
National Post (Toronto), 9 Nov; Guardian, D.Mail, CBC News, 11 Nov; Edmonton Journal, 30 Nov 2017.