ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Four people have been arrested in a Pine Hills kidnapping case that began to unfold when a woman started knocking on doors and windows Saturday afternoon, reportedly pleading for help and saying she had just escaped from being held against her will at a nearby property.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office acted on her testimony, observing that the woman — identified only as being in her 40s — had suffered minor injuries when deputies descended on the 5100 block of Barnett Place shortly after 2 p.m.
According to an arrest affidavit released Sunday, the detained are comprised of Monica Reed, 37; Cortez Jackson, 39; Kevin Holmes, 21; and Damon Tromp, 19.
The affidavit describes how these four individuals worked to allegedly terrorize the victim into giving up information, specifically her address, in search of “a potential stolen item.” A cord was used to restrain the victim’s hands as she was thrown into a vehicle and taken to the property at gunpoint, where her hands, feet and mouth were further restrained with duct tape and she was confined to a dog cage inside of a shed in the backyard, deputies said. Reed had also pistol whipped the victim, slashing her cheek, the document states.
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News 6 spoke with Tony Stanislaus on Saturday, who lives nearby and said that his home was one that the kidnapped woman had come to begging for help.
“I was in the bathroom about to take a shower and my lady told me that somebody’s knocking at the back window,” Stanislaus recalled. “I said, ‘Man, that’s impossible,’ because, you know, there’s a privacy fence back there.”
Stanislaus said that he told deputies about the brief encounter, reporting the woman was no longer at the window when he rushed to check on her.
“I told them, you know, ‘I don’t know if this has anything to do with anything, but someone clearly jumped the fence and got to our back window and tapped,” he said. “...At that time, my lady described the person and then the officer said, ‘Sounds like that was the victim.’”
News 6′s cameras were rolling as deputies walked a person out of the house that afternoon, bringing an end to an hourslong standoff that involved SWAT team members.
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The four defendants will face charges of armed kidnapping and false imprisonment with a weapon, with Reed to face an additional charge of aggravated battery, deputies said.
No further details were shared.
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