Bystander at gas station receives note from a terrified woman and immediately calls 911—it saved her life
Quick thinking and a flicker of courage can save their life a lot of times. A similar thing happened with a woman who slipped a note to a stranger at a gas station, asking them for help. Because of the note and the stranger's bravery, the woman could be saved from a potential kidnapping. The kidnapper was arrested shortly after that, when the stranger called the cops and followed the car to ensure that the woman was safe, per KSL TV5.
"We were just on our way home from St. George and pulled over at that gas station and I just went in to use the restroom. When I came out, the lady just kind of flung the door open," the person who saved the woman told KSL News Utah. "She handed me the paper and said, 'Please give this to the police,'" the person said, recounting the incident at Cedar City gas station. The woman who was getting kidnapped had written her phone number on the paper, but unfortunately, the phone was with the kidnapper. "I said, 'Are you in trouble?' and she said, 'Yes,' and I said, 'Ok, I’ll help you.' Then she said, 'Give this to the police. I have to go. He’s waiting right outside. He’s right there,' and she was like shaking."
The stranger reassured the woman that she would get some help for her and stood at the gas station for about five minutes to spot the kidnapper. She could see him buying a hot dog and a drink at the place. She carefully captured a video of the man, trying not to make him suspicious. The person noted that the woman and the man got into a white Equinox Chevrolet that had a Nevada license plate and quite a few unique identifying stickers. She tailed the car up to the northbound Interstate 15 and called 911 as soon as she got a clear view of the license plate.
Around 1:30 PM that day, a deputy with the Iron County Sheriff’s Office found the car near milepost 60 and asked the driver to pull over. He immediately recognized the woman in the car looked uncomfortable and asked her to get out of it. "I was just more worried like, what if she panics and says 'I’m fine,'— I just wanted to make sure the cops like … don’t let her go back with him, no matter what she says," the person remembered. Meanwhile, the kidnapper, Epigmenio Bustillos Marquez, gave the police a false ID and other fake documents. The woman revealed that she had been in a relationship with the man for 25 years and he had been acting quite strange lately. She had asked him to drive her to work, but he started taking her somewhere else.
The man threatened her and took her phone when she told him that she wanted to get out of the car at some point before she handed the note to the stranger. Eventually, the deputy asked the man to produce his wallet and looked through it for his original documents and found his Mexican ID. The woman revealed that the man was "likely in America illegally and has crossed the border multiple times." It was suggested that he should be arrested without bail so he could not leave the country. The man faced several charges, including kidnapping and assault.