A South Carolina man is accused of posing as a police officer, kidnapping a woman on a street and driving her to an isolated road where she managed to escape and flag down a passing truck driver for help, according to the sheriff’s department and local reports.
Truck driver Anthony Moore said he was traveling along an Aiken County, South Carolina, highway east of Augusta, Georgia, around 7 a.m. Friday when he saw the handcuffed woman frantically run out into traffic as a banged-up Cadillac repeatedly tried to run her over.
“She would run on one side of the road — he’d try to run her over — then she’d run to the other side … and he’d try to run her over there,” he told local station WRDW. “She said, ‘Help me, help me, help me! He’s trying to kidnap me!’”
Moore said after he stopped to help the young woman, the driver of the other vehicle, later identified by the Aiken County Sheriff’s Department as 39-year-old Jonathan Willard of nearby New Ellenton, pulled up and flashed a badge.
“He just held it up, just held it up sideways, and he said I’m with law enforcement,” he recalled the driver saying. The woman, screaming, denied this and accused Willard of trying to kidnap her.
After other drivers stopped to help and call 911, Moore said, Willard sped off. He was arrested the following day on charges of kidnapping and impersonating a law enforcement officer, according to the Aiken County Sheriff’s Department.
“Delayed divine timing,” Moore, who is also a pastor, said of his ability to save the woman. “God has an appointed place for us to be at an appointed time.”
The woman told deputies that she had been walking home from her father’s house that morning when Willard pulled up to her near an apartment complex, identified himself as a police officer, and ordered her to get into the back of his car, Columbia station WIS reported.
The man took her phone and personal belongings, including a diploma she received the day before during a graduation ceremony, Moore told WRDW.
The woman told deputies that she was driven to an isolated road while locked in the back seat. The vehicle stopped at an unmarked driveway with a gate, and the man then got out of the car and went outside to access the vehicle’s trunk. There, he moved around items that sounded like tools.
Seeing the front door of the vehicle left open, the woman climbed to the front seat and out the door and took off running, she told deputies.
Aiken County Sheriff’s Department
In a Facebook post Monday, the sheriff’s office shared a photo of Willard and encouraged the public to contact law enforcement if they have had “similar incidents or interactions with Willard.”
Willard was listed on Thursday as remaining in custody at the Aiken County Detention Center with no bond set. He was not listed as having an attorney.
The sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to JS’s requests for comment Thursday.