A 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped and held in a booby-trapped bunker was rescued by South Carolina police after she sent a cry for help by SMS to her mother.
Elizabeth Shoaf, from Lugoff, a rural area near the state capital Columbia, was abducted on September 6 as she got off her school bus. She was held in a pit dug on the side of a hill in woodland about a kilometre from her home.
Police managed to free her on Saturday morning, finding her at the mouth of the bunker with the door open. She had cried out as searchers approached the bunker.
Local sheriff Steve McCaskill said the girl appeared to be unharmed but she was taken to Kershaw County medical centre. Police have not interviewed her, saying they would leave her alone until she was ready to talk.
Her alleged abductor, an unemployed builder, Vinson Filyaw (37) was arrested on Sunday as he tried to flee on foot along an interstate highway in the neighbouring county of Richland. He was already wanted by police for criminal sexual conduct against a 12-year-old girl.
The girl managed to SMS her mother last Wednesday to say she was in a hole and could hear lorries driving nearby. Detectives tracked the message back to Filyaw’s phone. ”That was the first break,” said local sheriff Steve McCaskill. When they raided Filyaw’s home he escaped through an elaborate system of tunnels dug beneath his bed, under a trailer and to a shed.
Filyaw is known to be a survivalist who knows the local woodlands well. When police arrested him he was travelling with a Taser stun gun, a pellet gun and a hunting knife.
”He’s one that likes to get out and live off the land. He’s pretty savvy,” said McCaskill.
Sheriff David Thomley said the bunker the girl was found in was the fourth bunker investigators discovered since they began looking for Filyaw. He will be charged with kidnapping, possession of an incendiary device and impersonating an officer, McCaskill said. He added that more charges are likely to follow after investigators interview Shoaf on Monday.
After the girl was rescued a reporter with the local television news channel, Wltx, was allowed down into the bunker in which Elizabeth had been held.
The reporter found a wooden plank on top of the hole, acting as a door and covered with leaves.
The pit had apparently been dug by Filyaw using a shovel. It had a toilet, a camp stove and shelves made from branches and cloth.
McCaskill said: ”I’m 6ft 4ins and I can stand up in it without any problem. He was able to cook in there. He had a little system set up to let the smoke out as he cooked and it was quite a bit of work he put into it.”
According to The State newspaper, based in Columbia, Filyaw had posed as a police officer when he kidnapped the girl. He walked her around the woods to disorient her, then forced her to stay in the pit by threatening her with handmade grenades and a flare gun.
”The big relief was when we found Elizabeth Shoaf alive and well,” McCaskill told Associated Press. ”But it is a great relief when you get criminals of this type out of society and behind bars.”
On Sunday, the driveway in front of Elizabeth’s home was decorated with ”Welcome Home” balloons.
This is the second South Carolina case this year involving an abducted teenage girl taken to an underground hideout.
Kenneth Hinson of Hartsville is charged with kidnapping two 17-year-old girls on March 14 and taking them to a closet-sized dungeon behind his home. Authorities said the girls freed themselves and walked to safety. Hinson was captured after a four-day manhunt. – Guardian Unlimited Â