This is my nomination for the years strangest abduction and rescue. 
This couple really thought this guy wouldn’t react to them keeping a sex slave? :smack: Glad he stepped up and got her out of there.
http://www.14news.com/story/26469763/missing-evansville-mother-of-two-held-captive-since-july-9
http://www.tristatehomepage.com/story/d/story/ronald-higgs-on-how-he-led-joelle-lockwood-to-free/27804/OrnP5XV06k-5ZjQPkRex3g
From the other interview.
I don’t understand why he didn’t go directly to the police as soon as he knew it was happening.
The other guy threatened him with a shotgun. For all he knew, they might have killed her if he left without her.
He learned that they had a girl in a cage on Thursday night.
He spent most of Friday thinking of a rescue plan
On Friday night, the shotgun confrontation occurred.
He’s not the smartest cookie in the box and it wasn’t until the second day that he knew for sure it wasn’t voluntary (although that word may have too many syllables for him). There is this “you’re not very bright, are you?” land, somewhere between the average and “stupid”, and it can be quite amazing.
Yeah, Nava and I are thinking along the same lines. Thursday he could be thinking, well, weird, but probably consensual. Might even be a bit of role-play going on. It wasn’t until Friday she told him she was a prisoner and shit got real.
To be fair, it strikes me as one of those situations where I can see someone thinking, “This has GOT to be consensual, right? I mean, he wouldn’t SHOW this to me if it wasn’t, right? I mean, who actually kidnaps people and keeps them in cages in real life?”
NM
The smart thing would have been to play along and leave as planned without alarming anybody. Then call the cops ASAP. I guess since this was his ex-wife maybe he didn’t see that much personal danger. She wouldn’t let new bf shoot me. Would she? Apparently this could have gone very wrong very easily. Thankfully it worked out ok.
But ultimately the stupid guy got her out. He’s probably ugly too. I guess he just doesn’t measure up to your standards of a hero.
He saved her, but not good enough.
She got out. No one got hurt.
Too bad if the way it happened wasn’t perfect enough for some dopers.
I’d be impressed if Usain Bolt ran faster than a car. But I’d still tell the man to stop running in traffic and practice on a track.
I’m glad that Higgs was able to negotiate the situation in such a way that no further damage was done to anyone. But he should have called the cops, because - while they may not be infallible - they’re much more likely to figure out how to handle this sort of situation in a way that no one gets killed. It’s just luck that it turned out like it did. I discourage the world from relying on luck when it is a life or death situation.
Except for the woman trapped in a cage and repeatedly raped for months.
When should he have called the cops? As soon as he saw the girl? BAM BAM dead girl dead hero. When the guy pulled a shotgun on him? BAM BAM dead guy dead girl.
There was, apparently, no time that he could have called the police without putting himself and Miss Lockwood in further jeopardy before he extricated the both of them from the premises.
Yeah, because he extricated the both of them from the premises as soon as he knew there was an issue.
I’d lay down pretty good odds that he’s a smoker and has a cellphone. Even if he isn’t a smoker, I don’t think it’s all that hard to come up with an excuse to step outside to make a phone call.
Has anyone explained how he managed to get out of there with her? They won’t let him make a phone call, but he can waltz out the front door with a kidnapped woman?
I mean, the kidnappers were some kind of world class stupid, but I guess that goes without saying.
He handled the situation the best he could at the time. We can Monday morning quarterback and question his intelligence, but the reality is he was able to free her and walk her out of there without any violence whatsoever. That’s pretty impressive to me.
Regards,
-Bouncer-
He said in one of the interviews that he gave them the impression he wouldn’t call the cops. He’d just leave with the woman and that would be the end of it. I guess the guy with the gun just wasn’t a cold blooded murder. It takes a special kind of bad person to pull the trigger unprovoked.
You’re reading things that I didn’t write. I was explaining him, genius, not putting him down!
Would a response of “how come Joe wasn’t leaving the building when the fire alarm rang?” along the lines of “his hearing aids were off” have offended you too?
Is it really wrong that Dopers think that more careful, thoughtful action would have been a safer, better option, and would not have been so reliant on dumb luck as appears to have been the case here?
Sure, he got her out and he’s a hero; an extremely lucky hero. The outcome was good - that doesn’t necessarily mean the methodology was good.