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“Don’t Do Anything Stupid, or I’ll Kill You”

The muzzle of a gun stuck through the opening of the car window and pointed at my head. A voice said:

“Don’t look at me, Lady. Unlock the door. Move into the passenger seat.” I did as I was told. The man slid in behind the wheel, the gun still pointed at me.

“Do you have a key to the bank?”

“I don’t have a key. Someone will be here any minute to open up.”

“Don’t do anything stupid,” he warned, “or I’ll kill you.” He started my car and drove off.

This was becoming a habit. I was a teller in a branch of the Trust Company Bank. Last April a woman pointed her purse at me and said: “There’s a gun in here. Hand over the money.” I did so.

A few weeks later, a man came to my window. His gun was in plain view. “Give me the money.” I pushed a stack of bills toward him.

I’d had enough. I asked to be transferred to another branch. My request was granted. So now, on this morning of Thursday, May 23, I am sitting in my car in the parking lot of the new branch, the Peachtree Mall branch in Columbus, Georgia. I’m waiting for it to open. It is 8:25. I usually come to work a few minutes early and read the Bible text for the day. On this particular morning, it was Matthew 6:13, which says: “Deliver us from the wicked one.” I didn’t realize it then, but that text was to become very important to me for the next two days.

I’d worked at this new branch only two weeks and had not yet been given a key. My car window was rolled down a little, and I was reflecting on the text, which I had just read, when the gun’s muzzle appeared in the window. Twice before, robbers had absconded with bank money. This time it was with me.

As he drove off, I started praying out loud: “O Jehovah, please help me!”

“Who’s Jehovah?” my abductor demanded.

“He’s the God I worship.”

“Don’t look at me! You keep looking out your window! Jehovah . . . that’s the Watchtower, Jehovah’s Witnesses, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“I knew them when I lived in New York City. I’m Catholic myself. Anyway, you do your praying silently. I don’t want to hear it.” But he added: “Look, I’m not going to hurt you. I’m after money, not you. Don’t do anything stupid, and you won’t get hurt.”

All the while we were driving, he was asking me about the bank. Who was going to be there to open up? At what time did it open to the public? How much money was in it? Lots of questions about the bank. I was answering them to the best of my ability and at the same time praying silently. I was begging Jehovah to help me get through this safely.

After about ten minutes, he took a dirt road into some woods. Apparently he expected to meet someone, for he started mumbling to himself: “Where is he? Where is he?” He stopped the car and got out and made me slide across the seat and out the driver’s side, my back toward him all the time. With the gun sticking in my side, he led me deeper into the woods, my eyes always on the ground so I couldn’t see him. It was hard going through the heavy brush in my dress and high heels. He led me to a tree, made me face the trunk, and put heavy duct tape over my eyes and mouth. He taped my hands together behind my back and then fastened me to the tree with tape encircling me and the tree trunk.

By this time I was shaking violently. He ordered me to stop it. I mumbled through the tape that I couldn’t. “Well, just be still. Someone is watching you, and if you struggle to get loose, he’ll kill you.” With that he left me. I was remembering the daily text that said, “Deliver us from the wicked one,” and thinking how appropriate it was for me at this time.

He returned shortly but in a different car​—I would have recognized mine by the sound of the engine. He may have exchanged it for his own. He took the tape from around my waist and the tree trunk but left it over my eyes and mouth, and my wrists were still taped behind my back. He led me back through the brush to the car. He opened the trunk, bundled me into it, slammed the lid shut, and took off.

I started praying again. I was praying most of the day and asking Jehovah for the strength that I needed to endure whatever lay ahead. We drove probably 15 or 20 minutes before he stopped and opened the trunk, took the tape off my mouth, and asked me what the phone number was at the bank. I gave it to him. He asked me who was my boss. I told him, and he put the tape back over my mouth. That’s when he called the bank and demanded the money​—$150,000, I learned later.

He told George​—that was the name of the officer at the bank that day—​to be in a particular telephone booth south of Atlanta by two in the afternoon with the money, when he would get further instructions. He acquainted me with these developments and assured me that I would be freed soon. Two o’clock, however, was a long way off, and I was still cramped and trussed up in this trunk and getting hotter all the time. The hours dragged. Once or twice he looked in on me to see how I was doing. “Your God Jehovah is looking after you,” he commented. So he remembered my prayer to Jehovah from the morning.

I wondered about my family. Did they even know I was missing? If they did, how were they reacting? I worried about them even more than about myself. I thought about different scriptures. The one about Jehovah’s name being ‘a strong tower and the righteous running into it and being safe.’ Also ‘if you call on the name of Jehovah, you will be saved.’ And I was certainly applying the apostle Paul’s counsel to “pray incessantly.” (Proverbs 18:10; Romans 10:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:17) In addition to Bible texts, the words and melodies of Kingdom songs kept going through my mind, ones like ‘Jehovah, my rock, my strength, and my might’ and ‘Jehovah is my refuge.’

From experiences I had read in The Watchtower, I recalled that Jehovah had helped others endure special trials. One from the Awake! that stuck out in my mind was about a Witness who was held hostage in a bank robbery.a She was held tightly around the neck while the robber brandished a hand grenade and threatened her. Her ordeal went on for hours; she and the robber were holed up inside, with the police outside. She had also endured her ordeal by praying to Jehovah and recalling scriptures, and her courage was rewarded by her being returned safely to her family.

Eventually the car stopped, and the driver got out. I could not see my watch, since it was on my wrist and taped behind my back, but I assumed, correctly, that it was two o’clock and he had gone to make contact with George from the bank. I had hopes that my release might come soon. But it did not work out that way. Obviously, his plans had not gone smoothly, and we were driving again.

Suddenly the engine raced, and the car was gunned ahead at full speed! He was not only driving at very high speed but also swerving in and out as though dodging traffic. I was being thrown all over the trunk. My body was bouncing off the floor, my head was banging against the sides of the trunk. With my hands and arms restrained behind my back, I was powerless to brace myself or fend off the blows, as I was being flung every which way. It continued for maybe ten minutes, but it seemed much longer than that.

Soon after this the car stopped, and he opened the trunk to see how I was. Obviously, I was badly shaken and in distress from the beating I had taken. My heart was pounding and breathing came very hard. I was covered with perspiration and helpless to wipe it away with my hands tied behind me. Breathing came especially hard with only my nose showing between the tape over my eyes and the one over my mouth. He did take the tape off my mouth briefly so that I could breathe easier and talk if I wanted to.

He told me that the police had spotted his car, probably from their stakeout, and had given chase. That’s why he was going so fast and dodging to avoid hitting other cars. He did succeed in eluding the police. He explained that he had not got the money yet, but he was going to try something else, that it would be a little longer, but for me not to worry. He assured me again that he was not going to hurt me physically, that it was not his intention. He needed money, and I was the key to his getting it. When he said this, it put my mind at ease, since I had prayed that if he started to hurt me, Jehovah would help me react in the right way.

The hours dragged on. He stopped a couple of times, maybe for more phone calls or attempts to get the money. Once when he stopped, I heard him filling the tank with gas. I was so cramped I tried to shift around as best I could and made some noise. He immediately opened the trunk and warned me about making any noise. I wondered what time it was. He never told me specifically, except the first time, when it was two o’clock. I did know that we were still in the Atlanta area because I could hear the airplanes taking off and landing at the airport.

After that, he would open the trunk and say, ‘It’s going to be another hour. Another hour and you’ll be free.’ He said that several times. I no longer believed him. I just hoped. It was not an extremely hot day outside, but in the trunk it was close and stuffy and getting hotter. I was perspiring heavily, and it was becoming harder for me to breathe. I began to pray about the resurrection because I was not sure how much longer I was going to be able to breathe.

If I did die, I hoped that Jehovah would help my family deal with it. I was concerned about my family as well as myself. I knew that if I did die, Jehovah would bring me back in the resurrection, and I would be reunited with my family in his promised new world of righteousness. (John 5:28, 29; 2 Peter 3:13) My thoughts of Jehovah and his promises were what sustained me.

The driver opened the trunk again. It was dark​—it had been dark for hours. He had made more phone calls. None of his efforts to collect the ransom had worked out. He said he was tired of trying and was going to take me back to Columbus and let me go. By the time we got back, I was completely exhausted. I just lay in the trunk wishing everything would end. But I rallied myself and thought, ‘No, I’ve got to keep alert. I have to make myself stay awake. It’s all going to be over soon. He’s given up, and he’s taking me home.’

He was going to let me out at my car, but it wasn’t where he thought it would be. He took me to a Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, but lights were on in the apartment where one of our traveling representatives stayed. “I’m not letting you out where people are!” He did, however, let me out of the trunk for the first time. I was still blindfolded, my hands were still taped behind my back, but he did take the tape off of my mouth. I felt light-headed and could hardly walk​—my legs were so numb. He put me back in the trunk, took me down the road a way, left me at the back of a Baptist church, and drove off. It was 1:30 Friday morning.

I felt really light-headed, sat down, and passed out. The last thing I remember was hearing his car drive off. When I came to, three hours later, I was lying in the grass and mud. I worked the tape off my wrists and took it off my eyes. I looked at my watch. It was 15 minutes till 5. I’d been in the trunk 17 hours and unconscious on the ground for 3 hours. On legs shaky and numb, I walked down the road. A man was backing out of his driveway in his truck. I told him that I had been kidnapped and needed to call my family and the police. The police were there in ten minutes. It was over.

I was taken to the medical center to be checked over. For 20 hours I’d had nothing to drink or eat and no bathroom facilities, and I’d slept only the last three hours. My body was bruised, my dress muddy, my hair a mess, my face dirty and disfigured by tape marks. But none of this marred my reunion with my husband, Brad, and my mother, Glenda, as well as with the many other dear relatives and friends that had gathered there to welcome me back. Their ordeal of waiting and worrying was different from mine but in a way perhaps even more excruciating.

From the medical center, I went to the police station to answer questions and give a statement. As reported in the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, May 25, 1991, the police said that the kidnapper, who had now been apprehended, would also “be charged with a rape and aggravated sodomy that occurred last weekend,” which was just prior to my being abducted by him. Also reported in this press release was Police Chief Wetherington’s explanation of his request for a media blackout: “We were really concerned about Lisa’s life.” All of this made me even more convinced that it was my reliance on Jehovah that preserved me.

I went home to the best hot bath of my life, to sweet restorative sleep, and to this heartwarming thought as I drifted off into deep slumber: The day’s text of Matthew 6:13 was still a comfort to me, and in keeping with Psalm 146:7, I had experienced ‘a releasing after having been bound.’​—As told by Lisa Davenport.

[Footnotes]

[Blurb on page 17]

“Do your praying silently. I don’t want to hear it”

[Blurb on page 17]

He opened the trunk, bundled me into it, slammed the lid shut, and drove off

[Blurb on page 18]

I was bouncing off the floor, my head was banging against the sides of the trunk

[Blurb on page 19]

I just lay in the trunk wishing everything would end

[Blurb on page 20]

When I came to, three hours later, I was lying in the grass and mud