Terror at the mall

The mall gunman had slipped away, but Jane Doe was still bound inside her idling SUV. Blacked-out swim goggles prevented her from seeing.

Her 2-year-old son was in his car seat beside her.

Dennis Murphy, Dateline NBC: How are you restrained now? You've been tied here at the neck?

Jane Doe: Right. And I was handcuffed behind my back.

The father of her boy had been alerted and was on his way to the mall, but she had no intention of waiting to be found out in the many football fields of mall parking.

Dennis Murphy: How do you get out of that?

Jane Doe: Well, I had my hands behind me, and I pulled them under my butt and roll my feet like this.

Dennis Murphy: And how'd you get out from the restraint on your neck?

Jane Doe: I pulled the goggles up, and there was a button right here, and I pushed the headrest up. Like, I didn't know where he was. I was scared. Like he would see me and then at that point I just had to go.

Jane knew the mall and sped to the valet parking stand.

Jane Doe: I pulled up to the valet and I said, "Can you please call the police? I was just kidnapped." And he looked at me and said "Are you kidding?" And I was like, "No." And I showed him all my restraints. And he called the police.

So after an ordeal like Jane’s, you'd think maybe you were finally in the clear when the police showed up. But it hadn't been Jane’s day from the very start and now the cops weren't making it any easier.

She got the distinct impression that the arriving city of Boca Raton police officers did not believe her story. Not the gunman, not the terrifying ride around, none of it.

Jane Doe: I don't know, it just didn't seem like that they believed what I was telling them.

Dennis Murphy: Even with the scrapes that you had on your neck and your arms?

Jane Doe: Yes.

The cops checked out the cheap handcuffs still on her wrists, the zip ties in the back seat, and simply did not believe that anyone could get themselves out of that kind of bondage unless it was all a set-up of some kind. She'd have to be Houdini.

Dennis Murphy: Police didn't believe you could get out of that bind you were in, did they?

Jane Doe: No.

And when she recounted her terrifying odyssey--the business about the Florida turnpike, they doubted her story even more. The SunPass electronic device on her windshield hadn't recorded her entering the toll road.

There was no debit on her account.

Boca Raton Police Captain Matthew Duggan says now the town's officers weren't blowing off the woman's story.

Matthew Duggan: I wouldn't classify it as doubting a victim. I would clarify it as substantiating what they said, because ultimately, when we catch this guy, it will be evidence against him.

Dennis Murphy: They asked you to take a lie detector test, didn't they?

Jane Doe: Yes.

Dennis Murphy: You'd been a crime victim. What did that say to you?

Jane Doe: If they needed me to, for whatever reason, I was going to do it. I wasn't hiding anything.

Dennis Murphy: If there was a request for a lie detector test from the woman abducted, did that say something about initial hesitation in believing her?

Matthew Duggan: We have to be objective in what we look at. And, you know, if a lie detector was used it would be another tool that would just substantiate stories.

The Boca police did send out crime scene techs that evening to process the car and gather prints and DNA.

But still, the authorities' initial skepticism about Jane Doe and whether she was trying to pull some kind of crazy number on them, meant that as a news story it never got much play. The account of a woman abducted from the Town Center Mall came with an asterisk attached. It was termed an "alleged abduction." The tens of thousands of shoppers who use this mall every day never heard boo about it.

It was as though Jane Doe had never encountered the gunman in the fishing hat and wraparound sunglasses.

It was only a few days later -- an eon in the lifespan of police blotter news -- that the detectives were finally able to confirm Jane’s story about getting on the turnpike.

Matthew Duggan: We actually pulled video records from the toll plazas, and we could actually see her car going through the toll plaza.

Apparently, her SunPass device had simply malfunctioned when it indicated she hadn't entered the turnpike.

Months went by and Jane never heard from the police again. She was just another urban crime victim with a hair raising story to tell her friends and family.

Jane Doe: I just thought that they weren't going to catch him. And I didn't think anything was going to come out of it, unfortunately.

And then one day in November, three months after her abduction, she got a call from a sheriff's detective in the same county.

They were working a case that had started at the same mall. An old case.

An abduction.

And the victim had been shot to death.

Yes, she'd be happy to talk to them.

MORE FROM PEOPLE

People Section Front

NYT: Suspect ‘mortified’ about deployment Victims relieved ‘Ether Man’ may be in custody   Robbery suspect is Matt Lauer look-alike   Were red flags about shooting suspect ignored? Dad lost his job, so this family lives on the road Living on the road full-time: Is it right for you? Woman in wrong-embryo case plans to see baby   Parents remember N.D. softball players   Serial killer suspect held without bond   Jail inmates save guard from attack People Section Front   Add People headlines to your news reader: