Oftentimes, we don’t know quite what we’re made of until we have no other choice.
6abc Philadelphia shares the harrowing video footage of a kidnapping victim who had been held prisoner for a whole year as she managed to escape suspect James Parrillo by fleeing to a local gas station and locking herself inside the store with the clerk.
The footage shows the victim and gas station attendant Jammie Garthaus narrowly making it inside the gas station store door and locking it as Parrillo stands outside watching them.
“She came running and he was behind her and he was yelling, ‘You don’t want to do this,’ and when she got close enough to me she was like, ‘He kidnapped me.’ So, we both went inside and she locked the door and I called the cops,” Jammie explains.
This all took place in early February 2023 in Bass River Township in New Jersey. Parrillo was arrested and charged later that day with kidnapping, strangulation, and aggravated assault.
“The fact that she was able to escape and make it to safety, her actions are really the reason why Mr. Parrillo has been apprehended,” Colonel Patrick Callahan, the superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, said in a statement.
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Authorities say that Parrillo had been using the name Brett Parker and had met the victim in New Mexico in February 2022. She agreed to give him a ride to Arizona. The two began a voluntary relationship before he assaulted her in California and took her phone and credit cards.
The two eventually arrived in New Jersey in December 2022 and had been renting a room in Bass River, New Jersey, when she managed to escape.
To hear how the victim planned her escape, watch the full video posted by 6abc Philadelphia.
