Police: Washington woman's great-grandson was among teens who abducted her
PORTLAND -- The great-grandson of an 86-year-old Kennewick, Wash., woman who was kidnapped from her home and driven to Oregon in the trunk of her car was one of her abductors, court documents allege.
The victim, Hazel Louis Abel, was able to escape from the trunk of the car early Wednesday while the teenagers had left to go buy some toiletries in a store in Wood Village, Ore., near Portland, police said.
Abel told police she was at home in Kennewick on Tuesday night when she heard a knock at the door. She said that when she opened the door, someone threw what she believed to be dirt in her face and quickly covered her eyes and mouth with their hands. The intruders bound her hands together, stuffed something in her mouth and put a hood over her head, she said.
She said she was led to her own car in the attached garage and put in the trunk. The car then began driving. She told police she could hear a male voice and female voice, but she didn't recognize them. When the car eventually stopped, she was able to untie her hands and pull a cord to unlatch the trunk and escape.
When the three teenagers saw she was out of the trunk and talking to a store employee in a Walmart parking lot, they fled the scene.
After reviewing images from a store's surveillance video, police were able to find the three teenage suspects walking along a nearby road; they were a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy.
Police said the girl told them during an interview that she and the two boys wanted to run away to Portland and that the 16-year-old came up with the idea of using his great-grandmother's car. The girl said she waited outside while the two boys entered Abel's house in Kennewick and then later put her in the trunk of her car. The three then drove off to Oregon.
The 16-year-old, during his police interview, admitted that Abel was his great-grandmother and told police that a week earlier he had stolen $60 from her house. He said he later returned to ask Abel for more money, but she told him she only had $2 because of the previous theft. The boy "proceeded to make admissions" similar to the other two teens regarding the abduction in Kennewick, the documents said, but added that he and the other boy had planned on knocking Abel out, killing her, putting her body in the trunk of the car, and then disposing of the body by burning the car.
The prosecutor's office said they believe there is probable cause to charge the two boys with kidnapping, robbery, recklessly endangering another person and other charges. The girl is not facing charges.
Q13 FOX News is not naming the teenagers because they are underage and have not been formally charged.