Horrifying Story Tells How This College Student Outsmarted Her Alleged Kidnapper
One late-night grocery store run this past September left a Georgia college student forever changed - and now she's bravely sharing her story to help other people in similar scary situations.
Jaila Gladden says she left her apartment in Carrollton, Georgia at around 11:30 p.m. and headed to the nearby grocery store to pick up medicine and tea. It was a standard late-night grocery run for Gladden, she told Buzzfeed News in an exclusive interview.
Posted by Jaila Symone Gladden on Friday, June 26, 2015
While walking back to her a car, a man asked her for a lighter and she said no. Once she got to her car, she felt a knife pressing in to her abdomen and the man demanded that she get into the car. According to Gladden, she climbed into the car and the man hopped in on the driver's side, asking her for directions to Atlanta.
Soon after, they made their first stop at an abandoned church. The man allegedly asked Gladden to take her clothes off. She pleaded with him, but eventually gave in – "no purpose in crying," he told her, according to BuzzFeed.
He then revealed his plan: he was hoping to rob banks on his way to Michigan because he was in desperate need of money. He asked Gladden for directions to a nearby gas station but she told him she needed her phone to Google them – and this changed everything.
With her phone in hand, Gladden dimmed the brightness and shared her location with her boyfriend via text. Tamir Bryant, Gladden's boyfriend, asked why she was in Atlanta.
"Kid napped," she responded. "Stop playing rn," Bryant followed up. "I'm heading to the police station."
All this time, the man was oblivious to the fact that Gladden was texting, but eventually took her phone away again. After, a failed attempt at robbing a gas station, the man reportedly asked Gladden to find another location. She, once again, requested her phone to look up directions. She continued her conversation with her boyfriend, detailing what car she was in and what type of weapons the man had.
"I'm scared. Don't call 911," she texted. "I'm with them now what you want me to do. Telling parents now," her boyfriend responded.
And then Gladden said the most heartbreaking thing of all.
"I don't want him to kill me. If he see's light, he's gonna do it."
Gladden says she led the man to the nearest Kroger. Within seconds of putting her in the trunk, the man came back and said there were too many security guards out at night to successfully rob the store.
By this time, Gladden's boyfriend was at the police station, providing officers with real-time updates from his girlfriend's texts.
A police officer driving around Atlanta spotted an idle car that matched the description of Gladden's. Once the driver saw the officer, he sped toward the exit, ultimately colliding with four cars and the parked patrol car. Gladden was safe at last.
As a result of this terrifying September night, authorities have charged Timothy Wilson with kidnapping, hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault, rape, aggravated sodomy, false imprisonment, and aggravated assault against a police officer, according to prison records. He's currently in jail awaiting trial.
Today, Bryant credit's his girlfriend's location sharing via text message as the reason she is happy, safe, and most importantly, alive.
A spokesperson from the Carrollton police department told BuzzFeed News that we should all take a lesson from Gladden and ensure that our location sharing is turned on - at all times. "If this victim did not have her phone and did not think quickly she may not have been as lucky," the spokesperson said.
To turn on location sharing, head to Settings › Privacy › Location Services. From there, you can customize your location sharing for each app on your phone.
But be careful: Enabling location sharing is a double-edged sword. While it can certainly be helpful in times of crisis, it can also be dangerous if you let strangers on various apps know your whereabouts at all times. Be weary about who you share your location with and what apps have access to your location.
Read more of the horrifying story on BuzzFeed.
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