Emergency Dispatchers Save Kidnapped Woman in Seguin

“She would hang up, and I’d call her back. We’d lose connection, or she’d hang up because he was suspicious. At this point, your experience and your training kicks in,” Seguin Police Department telecommunications officer Jessica Martin told WFAA. In February, Martin along with fellow telecommunication officer, Denera White, saved a kidnapped woman trapped in a vehicle with a man who threatened to kill her and himself while he was driving from Seguin to Austin.

Martin called the woman back several times, and realized she had to remain cryptic in order to stay as safe as possible. White stepped in to ask the woman a series of yes and no questions while the woman pretended she was talking to her mother. Then, White gave the woman her number in order to text instead, which she was able to remember. White let her know that a helicopter was on the lookout for the vehicle.

“I think at one point she actually made eye contact with the pilot, which was pretty cool. He said on the radio, ‘She just looked at me. I have them’,” White told WFAA. Soon after, police stopped the car.

KSAT reports that 41-year-old Enrique Leiner was charged with unlawful restraint, and neither he nor the woman were injured in the ordeal.