|
Beaten woman rescued from car |
| Print |
|
E-mail
|
Beaten woman rescued from car
By ROBERT FARLEY
Published March 5, 2007
ST. PETE BEACH - He left her inside the car with the windows up and the doors locked, police say.
As he walked into work at the TradeWinds Island Resorts Friday morning, he activated the car alarm so he would know if she tried to escape.
The 17-year-old woman lay in the back seat, beaten so badly with a belt earlier that morning that she could not walk.
She was terrified that her boyfriend would return to beat her or kill her, as he had threatened.
Then she heard a jingling of keys. Someone was walking nearby. She decided to take a desperate shot at freedom and survival.
According to the woman's mother, Kim Preston of Largo, her daughter had been left imprisoned in the back of the car for much of the last two weeks while her boyfriend, Kenneth D. Brown, 20, worked eight- hour shifts in the housekeeping department.
The victim, whose name was withheld by police because her age, had been living with Brown in St. Petersburg for five months. Brown had beaten her severely several times before, said Natalie Strong, spokeswoman for the St. Pete Beach Police Department.
Preston said Brown would tell her daughter that if he woke up in the morning and she wasn't holding him, he'd beat her. On Friday morning, Preston said, her daughter turned over in the night, so she was awakened with a punch in the face. He later beat her with a belt, she said, and then - because shewouldn't stop crying - with the belt buckle.
About 8 a.m., Brown picked her up, put her in the car and drove to work. He told her to lie in the back seat.
If she sat up, he said, he would be able to see her and he would come out and beat her, Preston said her daughter told her. He told her that if she opened the car door, he would "finish her off," Preston said.
Preston said Brown told her daughter to fill the hours writing in two notebooks, one labeled, "How to Keep Your Man," and the other "How to be a Grown-up." She would read what she had written on the rides home.
The victim told her mother that Brown came out from work regularly to check on her and that on Friday he was particularly angry.
Fearing desperately for her life, Preston said, her daughter peeked out of he car when she heard the jingle of keys. Then she desperately yelled to an elderly man walking by.
The man, who police said was a retired schoolteacher vacationing at the TradeWinds, saw the woman waving her arms and screaming.
"Please come here and help me. I'm beat up and I can't walk. You'll have to promise you'll get me out of here in 20 seconds," Preston said her daughter yelled.
Twenty seconds was how long it took for the car alarm to go off after the door was opened.
Preston said the passer-by carried the battered victim to some nearby bushes, to hide briefly, and then inside to the TradeWinds security office, where he called police.
Police arrived and promptly arrested Brown and charged him with false imprisonment. He was later charged by the St. Petersburg police with aggravated domestic battery for the alleged earlier beating at their home.
Brown was held in Pinellas County Jail on Sunday in lieu of $50,000 bail.
Strong, of the St. Pete Beach Police Department, said Brown was fired from his job at TradeWinds. Hotel officials did not return a phone call from the St. Petersburg Times on Sunday. She said police could not confirm whether the woman had been forced to stay in the car on days other than Friday.
Strong said the woman received medical care on Friday. She had numerous bruises and scars on her legs and on her arms - defensive wounds from trying to protect her face, Strong said.
Preston said her daughter was being treated Sunday in the psychiatric ward at Morton Plant Hospital. Her daughter, Preston said, was still struggling with the belief that she was to blame for the beatings. |
