Man accused of keeping woman for six days

Staff report

youngstown

A Mahoning County grand jury Thursday indicted a man on kidnapping charges after a woman said he kept her in a Thornton Avenue home against her will for six days.

Owen Gunther, 48, was indicted via direct presentment on a charge of felonious assault and two counts of kidnapping.

He was arrested Tuesday and is in the Mahoning County jail.

He is expected to be arraigned before Judge R. Scott Krichbaum later this month.

A 35-year-old city woman made a police report Jan. 17 claiming that she argued with Gunther, her live-in boyfriend, Jan. 11, inside her home in the 200 block of Thornton Avenue and he punched and kicked her until she passed out.

When she woke up, he tied a rope around her neck until she passed out again, reports said.

The woman said Gunther kept her in the house for six days until Jan. 17.

Reports do not say how she managed to free herself, but she called police from a Fifth Avenue church, reports said.

Officers saw that she had several cuts and bruises and broken blood vessels in her eyes and she was taken to St. Elizabeth Health Center, reports said.