Officers in Salt Lake City, Utah arrested a man Tuesday for allegedly abducting a woman and keeping her in his house against her will, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.
The 39-year-old man held the woman for “several weeks,” officers said, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. During this period, he reportedly tortured her.
Officers found the woman when they went to the Poplar Grove house Tuesday night after receiving reports that a woman was unlawfully imprisoned there, the outlet reported.
They were also informed by an individual in contact with the woman, who told officers she had messaged him, requesting help, saying she was fearing for her life, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. (RELATED: Woman Saved From Abductor By Leaving Notes In Bathrooms)
Police vehicles sit outside the Belmar shopping center on Monday in Lakewood, Colorado. Image for illustration purposes only (Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)
When officers entered the house, they found the woman with heavy bruises near her eyes, police noted in their probable cause statement on the incident, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The woman had breathing difficulties due to sore ribs, officers noted.
The man would hold a knife to her throat, point a gun to her head, whip her with a belt and had even choked her twice to a point where she almost lost consciousness, the woman told officers, according to the outlet.
He had engraved the number 6 onto her hand and told her that in six months if she did not “love him,” she’d “be killed,” the victim reportedly told police.
The woman was taken to the hospital for injuries after the raid, officers said. The man is jailed in the Salt Lake County Jail, held under suspicion of aggravated kidnapping and assault, the newspaper reported.
The man should not receive bail because of the “substantial danger” he posed to the victim and the possibility that he could run away to California, Arizona, or Florida as a fugitive, an officer who had responded to the scene on Tuesday wrote in the probable cause statement, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.