Wednesday, June 17, 2015
HUBBARD TOWNSHIP — The Southington Post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol investigated a report by a hitchhiker that she had been abducted by a male truck driver in Idaho, but the woman later declined to press charges.
The woman told the patrol she was hitchhiking from California to find her children and got a ride from a commercial truck driver in Idaho.
They rode together consensually for three weeks until the driver became “verbally and physically aggressive” toward her, she said. She sent a text message to a friend saying she was being held against her will, according to a highway patrol press release issued today.
The friend called Montana State Police, which called the Ohio State Highway Patrol. The patrol and Hubbard Township police located the woman at the Truck World Gas Station in Hubbard Township, where the driver was taken into investigative custody and taken to the patrol’s Southington Post.
After a lengthy interview, the woman “decided not to pursue any charges, as she was not actually being held captive,” the patrol said.
The driver was released, and the two parties went their separate ways, with the woman assisted to safety with plans to continuing to her original destination, the patrol said.