Published on Friday, July 13, 2007
in the St. Petersburg Times

Woman found bound up in car

TAMPA - A driver on Interstate 4 glanced up at a Chevy Blazer Thursday afternoon and saw something alarming: a woman in the back window, wrapped in duct tape and bleeding.

The driver reported this to the Florida Highway Patrol, and troopers caught up with the sport utility vehicle on the entrance ramp to north Interstate 275 from Interstate 4.

In the back seat, they found a 35-year-old woman from Panama City who told them she had been grabbed from the street in Ybor City, said Larry Coggins, a Highway Patrol spokesman.

"Our trooper witnessed her in the vehicle and pulled the duct tape off her mouth to help her," he said.

They arrested the driver, Marcus A. Young, 54, of 8517 N Suwanee Ave., Tampa, on an accusation of armed kidnapping, aggravated battery with a weapon identified in records as a knife and battery to cause bodily harm.

In an affidavit filed at the jail, Trooper Todd Madely wrote that when he pulled the Blazer over he saw a woman bound with duct tape by her wrists and mouth, with blood on her forehead.

When the tape was removed from her mouth, Madely wrote, "the victim told me the defendant had kidnapped her and punched her in the face."

She was taken to St. Joseph's Hospital, and Young was taken to Memorial Hospital after he complained of chest pains, patrol officials said.

In the Blazer troopers found a knife and duct tape, Madely wrote. These, along with a comforter, were taken as evidence.

Coggins said Young also consented to a search of his home, and there they found clothing that investigators believe belong to the victim.

"She was at his residence at some point today or yesterday," he said. "They're definitely acquaintances."

The name of the woman was not released by authorities at her request, nor was the name of the witness who called and reported the kidnapping attempt.

After Young was released from the hospital, he was being held in Orient Road Jail without bail Thursday night.

Booking records list Young as retired from the Navy. He lives with a wife and teenage daughter in Sulphur Springs, according to neighbors. A sign on the front porch reads "Welcome friend."

A woman who answered the phone at Young's home Thursday evening declined to comment on the arrest. "I don't know what's going on," she said.