Terror at the mall

Dennis Murphy Correspondent • Profile

BOCA RATON, FLA. - On a steamy August afternoon in south Florida, the mall -- like malls anywhere -- can be a place to escape, an everyday Christmas of possibilities in the upscale shop windows.

For some people, it's an air-conditioned Main Street where they can let their brain slip out of gear for awhile.

Jane Doe: And a lot of mothers go there with their kids to walk around, get them out of the house.

This woman -- call her Jane, as in Jane Doe -- is speaking in disguise because of the terrible things that happened to her one day after she and her young son had a nothing-special wander through the big mall near Boca Raton, north of Miami.

While she was shopping -- spraying on a sample of perfume, buying a fashion baseball cap -- someone was out in the parking lot. Waiting. Watching. On the hunt for vulnerable women.

He must have locked on Jane as she and her son exited the mall at Nordstrom about one o'clock that day. She was doing the usual mother's juggling act as she popped the hatch of her black SUV.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline NBC: So you're a little bit encumbered.

Jane Doe: I had everything in the stroller. So, I put my son in first. I strapped him in his car seat.

Dennis Murphy: He's in back.

Jane Doe: Yeah, in the back. Then I go to the back of the truck and I put the stroller in, shut the gate, and start walking to the front … And that's when I hear my son, and he's, like, "mama, mama." And I could tell, like, he's worried or scared. That's when I look in to see if he's OK, and there's a guy sitting there.

It was a guy in a floppy hat and wrap-around shades, sitting in her SUV, right next to her 2-year-old.

Dennis Murphy: That moment; how terrifying is that?

Jane Doe: I was in shock at that moment. And I just stood there and the guy said, "Get in the car," and I was frozen. And when he said, "Get in the car" for the second time that's when I noticed the gun.

The gun is pointed at her son.

The man in the hat ordered her to drive away from the mall and find a drive-through ATM machine.

She follows his directions.

Jane Doe: He tells me to withdraw $200. So I withdraw $200 and I gave it to him. And then I withdrew another $200, and another $200. And then when I go for the $800 it denies me, because I reached my maximum.

Dennis Murphy: Was he agitated, the way a junkie might be if he's looking for a fast hit of cash to go get drugs?

Jane Doe: No. He was calm. He thought about everything he did. He wasn't jumpy. He wasn't agitated. You could almost say maybe he's done it before.

Dennis Murphy: And yet you must be thinking, "We’re both dead here."

Jane Doe: Yeah, but the guy had said, "Just do what I say and I’ll take you back to the mall."

But he doesn't. He tells her to pull into the slow moving sludge of midday traffic. Her son, sitting next to the gunman, is lulled asleep by the moving vehicle.

Jane Doe: And we're driving, and driving. And he asks me if there's a church around here.

Dennis Murphy: A church?

Jane Doe: Yeah. When he said, "a church," I was thinking, "Oh, dear God he's going to kill me at a church," or something strange like that.

Murphy: Ritualistic?

Jane Doe: Yeah.

Jane was at the wheel, glancing at the car to her left. The other driver can't see inside the dark smoked glass windows of her big SUV. Never sees her stark terror.

Jane Doe: I thought of crashing, like, my truck. But then I thought, you know, if I did that then he might get mad and hurt my son.

They never do find a church but the gunman orders Jane to pull into the rear parking lot of a Hilton hotel. He tells her to get out.

Jane Doe: And I was begging him not to kill me. And he said, "I’m not going to. I don't need any more problems than I already have, or any more trouble than I’m already in."

"More trouble"? What's this guy talking about? It's all a surreal jumble. One minute you're buying a baseball cap and the next moment you and your young child are looking at eternity.

Jane Doe: I remember thinking, you know, "Nobody knows that I’m going to die today.”

The gunman wanted her to swap seats with him. Him driving. Her in the back seat with the kid.

Then bad gets a lot worse.

Jane Doe: I see him pull out a pair of handcuffs. And he handcuffs my wrists behind my back and he pulls out a bag of zip ties. And he zip ties my ankles together, and then zip ties my neck to the headrest. And he takes out a pair of darkened sunglasses with duct tape, I’m guessing, and puts them on my eyes so now I’m blindfolded.

Dennis Murphy: Speak to me of terror.

Jane Doe: I started losing it. And I started choking, choking myself because the zip tie was so tight, you know, I was choking myself and I couldn't breathe and gagging and crying and I was just hysterical.

Whatever she's doing seems to work. Her abductor eases up on the zip tie around her neck.

Jane Doe: So he loosened it, and, you know, he's like, "Is that better?" and I’m, like, "Yes."

He pulls into traffic and then abruptly stops again. He has a plastic bag with him. He reaches in and pulls out a knife.

Jane Doe: I didn't know what he was going to do with the knife, so I was crying, "Please don't kill me, please don't hurt me." He was, like, "I’m not. Just stay still. Don't move." And he cut the zip tie off my neck. And that was it. Then started driving again.

But now Jane thinks whoever this guy is he doesn't seem to know the local roads. He's managed to get himself on the toll road, the Florida Turnpike, and he's steamed at his error.

Jane Doe: He makes a u-turn, and I guess my son's bottle fell and he started crying. And I saw that it went, like, under the driver's seat. So he grabbed it and gave him his bottle and he stopped crying.

After two hours of this -- him driving the big SUV erratically, Jane in back, bound by the ankles and hands, blackout sunglasses over her eyes -- he stops the vehicle and, lo and behold, they're back at the Town Center Mall where it all started.

Jane Doe: He tells me that he's going to put the zip tie back on my neck. And he's going to let me call somebody and tell them that my truck is broken down and that they need to come get me.

The guy dials her cell phone.

Jane Doe: I tell him who to call, my son's father. And I told him, you know, "My truck's broken down. Come get me.”

Dennis Murphy: Did you get the feeling he was trying to come across as a nice guy to you in some weird way?

Jane Doe: Like, he changed to kind of a nicer guy in a way. It sounds kind of weird, but a different person almost.

But Mr. Nice and accommodating was still in control. He had a final order for his victim.

Jane Doe: "Now, when the police come, I want you to tell them that I’m short, fat and black." He then takes the sunglasses that he had on me off and he put a pair of swimming goggles on me that were blacked out.

In the back seat, still bound, strapped to the rear seat headrest, and now the world gone totally dark.

Jane Doe: He said to me, "If I see anything on the news with my face or my picture, my description, I will come after you."

The gunman slammed the door and was gone.

But he'd be back.

The mall was perfect for his kind of hunting.

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