A woman was saved from an alleged kidnapper posing as an Uber driver after she handed a note to a stranger at a gas station.
The Arizonan woman was taken to a Chevron gas station where she was able to quickly hand a scribbled note to a customer at the gas station.
On the piece of paper, the woman wrote: “Help,” before including her name and phone number and giving a description of the car and where it was headed.
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“Call 911. Blue Honda van … going towards Kingman Las Vegas,” she wrote.
After being passed the note, the customer called the cops who rushed to the area, the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office said.
“The customer relayed that the van had just left westbound on I-40, and provided descriptions of the clothing for both the woman and the man with whom she was traveling,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
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Officers then found the vehicle, and arrested Jacob Wilhoit, 41 - who had already been named as a person of interest after the woman was allegedly kidnapped from a car dealership.
The statement continued: “YCSO 911 Dispatchers determined that the victim had been reported missing by her mother and entered as missing/endangered earlier that afternoon. The entry mentioned Jacob Wilhoit by name as a person of interest.
"Detectives learned that Wilhoit had abducted her from a car dealership in the Phoenix area on Monday morning at approximately 7 a.m. He was wearing a wig and pretending to be an Uber driver. Wilhoit restrained her as they drove to Las Vegas and spent the night at a Lake Mead park.
“Multiple firearms were found in WIlhoit’s car in plain view. Wilhoit was ultimately booked on charges of harassment, threatening, and intimidating, aggravated assault, unlawful imprisonment, kidnapping, along with several other assault charges.
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“The victim’s extraordinary action in passing the note, the customer’s willingness to assist, and the quick actions of YCSO and DPS saved the victim from her kidnapper and allowed her to return home with her family."
The woman, who has not been named, has been left ‘traumatized’, according to YCSO spokesperson Kristin Green.
Green told Arizona Family: “We’re confident that she’ll get through it. And obviously she wants to see this man put away. She’s still in a state of shock about all of this.”
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She went on to say that the quick-thinking customer did the right thing by calling the police.
“It’s really no skin off your back to take the person seriously and make the call to 911. If it turns out it’s some kind of hoax, no harm no foul. But don’t just automatically discount it,” she added.
Claire Reid