Kentucky man sentenced to 43 years in violent kidnapping

LONDON, Ky. — A Kentucky man has been sentenced to 43 years in federal prison for a violent kidnapping that crossed state lines.

Douglas M. Edmonson used a gun to force a victim into a car in Tennessee, brought her to Corbin, Kentucky, and repeatedly assaulted the woman over two days, according to prosecutors.

A judge called the 2018 kidnapping “degrading” and “exploitative” during Edmonson’s sentencing Friday in London, according to a media release from the U.S. Attorney’s office for Kentucky’s eastern district.

“It is sub-human to treat a person this way and to put a person in such fear for her life and to strip her, literally and figuratively, of human dignity so astonishingly,” U.S. District Judge Robert E. Wier said.

Edmonson, 38, pleaded guilty to federal charges in September.

Prosecutors said Edmonson was part of a drug trafficking group and believed the victim had stolen methamphetamine. The victim was able to escape after another person in the home shot and killed themselves, according to a federal affidavit.

Edmonson used another person’s facebook account to lure the female victim, and then used a .38 revolver and a homemade pipe bomb to coax the victim’s compliance, prosecutors said. The victim was bound, blindfolded, and repeatedly assaulted during the two-day kidnapping.

Three other people were charged in the incident. Bryanna Soper, 27, of Corbin, has been sentenced to 396 months in prison and five years of supervised release. Dallas Chain Perkins, 23, of Jellico, Tennessee, and Erik Peace, 34, of Corbin, are scheduled to be sentenced in February.