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EDGEWATER, Colo. (AP) — Police are looking for a man suspected of kidnapping a 16-year-old suburban Denver girl who managed to escape after stabbing her abductor with his knife.
The kidnapping began Wednesday evening and ended about 20 miles away on Interstate 225 in Aurora. According to police, the unidentified abductor asked the girl for directions as she waited for a bus in Wheat Ridge and then offered to give her a ride to her home in nearby Lakewood. She accepted, but when they got near her house she told authorities that he drove into an alley in Edgewater. According to her account, he pulled out a knife, bound her hands with rope and began to drive away.
About an hour later on I-225, she said she managed to open the passenger door of the pickup truck and stick her legs out in a failed attempt to get the attention of another driver. Then she said she was able to free one of her hands and picked up the suspect's knife from the floor of the truck. She told police that she started stabbing the suspect as he drove and that she ran from the vehicle after he stopped the vehicle.
Police say she ran to a home near the highway, where police were called. She had cuts on her right hand and was treated and released from the hospital.
Edgewater police Chief John Hough praised her bravery and confidence.
"We don't know what would have happened if she hadn't escaped," he said.
Officers are looking for a suspect.
In what police believe is a coincidence, the kidnapping started several blocks away from where a 10-year-old walking her dog was nearly abducted earlier in the day. In that case, the girl screamed for help and kicked the suspect in the groin. Her dog also bit him. Police later arrested a registered sex offender, Dennis James Willmore, 35, who lives in the neighborhood and who the girl identified as her attacker. It wasn't immediately clear if he has a lawyer.
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