A quick-thinking gas station clerk is being hailed a hero after she helped a woman, who had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted, escape from her captors.
Savannah Pritchett, 24, who works at the Triple R Gas and Mart, said the young woman immediately asked for her help when she walked in the station on Wednesday around 3pm.
Surveillance video shows the woman getting out of the vehicle and entering the store after convincing her kidnappers that she needed to use the store’s bathroom.
Quick-thinking gas station clerk, Savannah Pritchett (pictured), is being hailed a hero after she helped a woman, who had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted, escape from her captors
Surveillance video shows the woman getting out of the vehicle and entering the store after convincing her kidnappers that she needed to use the store’s bathroom
The woman then approaches Pritchett and explains to her that she had been kidnapped the night before and raped as she points to the suspects outside
The woman then approaches Pritchett and explains to her that she had been kidnapped the night before and raped as she points to the suspects outside.
Pritchett told KCRA: ‘The first thing she did tell me was, “I was kidnapped, and they do have guns. Please, lock the door, they will kill us, or kill me.”‘
She then went and locked the doors to the store before giving the victim her cell phone and telling her to lock herself inside the bathroom and call 911.
Meanwhile, two of the four suspects, ages 18 and 16, were seen outside the door trying to get inside.
Pritchett went to unlock the doors and told them the woman was using the bathroom.
The suspects then entered the store looking for the woman.
Pritchett then went and locked the doors to the store before giving the victim her cell phone and telling her to lock herself inside the bathroom and call 911
Meanwhile, two of the four suspects, ages 18 and 16, were seen outside the door trying to get inside. When police arrived, Anthony Sandoval (right), 18, was taken into custody
A short time later, surveillance video shows deputies (pictured) with their guns drawn as they enter the gas station
A short time later, surveillance video shows deputies with their guns drawn as they enter the gas station.
There they arrested Anthony Sandoval, 18, and two other 16-year-old suspects, who have not been identified.
The surveillance footage also shows Sandoval being handcuffed and escorted to a police cruiser.
Police also found two guns, one inside their vehicle and another in the store.
‘Her being able to get this victim into a secured restroom with a phone and being able to contact law enforcement very well may have saved her life,’ Sgt Tom Letras of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department told the station.
Authorities said they are still searching for a fourth suspect, who was not at the gas station at the time.
The surveillance footage shows Sandoval (left and right) being handcuffed and escorted to a police cruiser
Authorities said they are still searching for a fourth suspect, who was not at the gas station at the time. The incident occurred at the Triple R Gas and Mart (pictured)