Police investigating kidnapping

At about midnight, the two returned to the police department, and had the victim on the telephone. The man explained he was walking on a road he thought might be Hwy. 334.

The officer arranged for a Jackson County deputy to look for the man as the officer talked to him on the phone.

The victim said he was walking in the parking lot of the old Shell convenience store across from Ingles when the pickup truck, driven by an older white male in his 60s with a heavyset white male, possibly in his 30s, as a passenger. The man said the heavyset passenger got out, grabbed him and forced him into the truck. When he resisted, the victim said, his assailant punched him in the face and sat on his chest. He noted that the man appeared to be drunk.

The victim asked the men what they were doing he said, and the big man pulled a knife, cut his forehead and told him to be quiet.

The victim reported that the two men discussed going to Arizona and dropping the victim off in Texas. Then, the driver told the heavyset man to “go ahead and have some fun,” whereupon the man pulled a pistol and talked about Russian roulette. The victim said the man pushed the gun against the victim’s throat three times, but when he tried it a fourth time, the gun went off and shot out a part of the back sliding window.

The two men began arguing about the window, the victim said, and the heavyset man ordered the driver to pull over. When he did, the heavyset man got out and vomited, at which time the victim jumped out and ran into the woods somewhere off Hwy. 334. He stayed in the woods until he found a driveway and followed it to the highway.