Five Teenagers Charged with Robbing and Kidnapping Old Woman
Five teenagers – ages 14 to 17 – were charged with robbing and kidnapping an 89-year-old Lincoln woman, locking her in the trunk of her own car for nearly two days and then releasing her in a cemetery, where she was found Wednesday morning crawling around on her hands and knees, state police said.
Police called Junia McDonald, 14, and Jackeline H. Perez, 15, both from Milford, the “ringleaders” in the incident, which began sometime after 11 a.m. Monday at the Chicken Man convenience store at Marshall and S.E. Second streets in Milford.
That’s where, police say, the girls approached the elderly woman and asked her for a ride to the Lincoln area.
The victim agreed to give the girls a lift. When they reached their destination, McDonald and Perez allegedly ordered the woman to hand over her keys. She refused, and a struggle ensued, said Master Cpl. Gary Fournier.
The girls took the keys, Fournier said, forced the woman into the trunk of her tan 2001 Buick LeSabre and drove off.
“They opened the door and shoved me in the trunk and locked it,” the victim told WPVI –TV. “I banged and banged and banged.”
At one point, police said, Perez stole $500 from the victim’s coat pocket.
Fournier said the woman remained in the trunk throughout the nearly two-day ordeal, in near-freezing temperatures and without food or water.
About 4 p.m. Tuesday, the girls were joined by Rondaiges A. Harper and Phillip L. Brewer, both 17, from Bridgeville. Police said the four drove the stolen car to the Days Inn in Seaford, where they rented a room for the night. They left the woman in the trunk of her car.
By 9 that night, a relative of the victim had contacted state police to report her disappearance. The relative said the woman, who has a medical condition and requires medication, had not been seen or heard from since about 11 a.m. Monday, when she drove away from her Slaughter Neck Road home. Troopers issued a Gold Alert.
Meanwhile, the teens were driving around in the woman’s car and at some point dumped her off in a desolate cemetery east of Seaford and abandoned her, Fournier said.