A South Redondo Beach woman who was the victim of a kidnapping and alleged attempted murder/suicide last month that left the perpetrator dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound wants to set the record straight.
“Timothy had full-intent and plans to murder me that day,” the 22-year-old victim wrote in an email to various news outlets. “Words cannot begin to explain the horrific and terrifying trauma I experienced that day, and am continuing to cope with.”
Lieutenant Joe Hoffman of the Redondo Beach Police Department told Easy Reader that Sergeant Shawn Freeman, upon receiving the email, personally confirmed with the victim that she did indeed write the email herself.
According to the victim’s account, she was wakened around 1 a.m. on October 9 to the sounds of her bedroom door being unlocked and opened. Then 27-year-old Timothy Thomas, her estranged friend, barged into her room, pointing a gun at her head and making threats. He dragged her into his car and drove to a Super 8 Motel in Torrance where “he had everything set up” in an upper floor room. Police accounts call Thomas an “ex-boyfriend” but the victim insists that Thomas was “a co-worker turned friend, who became a very close friend” and that they were never in a dating relationship. The victim attempted to distance herself from Thomas earlier this summer, ending relations, an action which she says he struggled with.
“He was eager to inflict pain on me before murdering me and then himself,” the victim recounted about the two hours she spent “begging for her life” while being held captive by Thomas in the motel room. She was able to coerce Thomas to divulge more information about his plans and convinced him to set her free.
“I was finally able to convince Timothy (from the grace of God) to let me go home after being traumatized and beaten for what felt like eternity,” the victim wrote. “Having said no the first hundred times I begged, this time he said fine.”
But the second she left the hotel room, Thomas ran after her. Again, the victim, as best she could, controlled the situation and convinced Thomas to go downstairs and outside to talk. Only then was she was able to create enough distance to escape.
“I darted into the hotel lobby screaming and crying out for help from the man at the desk,” she recounted. “He grabbed me and brought me behind the counter where I immediately darted underneath his desk to hide while the man called 911.”
Shortly thereafter, Thomas entered the lobby and asked the clerk if he had seen the victim. The clerk, still on the phone with Torrance police and with the victim hidden under his desk, said “No.” Thomas left and returned after a few minutes, again asking the clerk if he was “sure” he hadn’t seen the victim. The clerk acted oblivious and Thomas left.
According to the victim’s account, once the police arrived at the scene, they would not “come in and save” her because they were still unsure of the armed suspect’s whereabouts. The victim and the clerk ran out to the police for safety. Unreported by police, the victim writes of serious physical injuries she sustained from the kidnapping incident.
“He had punched me in my face repeatedly, my jaw was swollen, my mouth bloody,” she wrote. “No one saved me. Timothy did not release me.”
As soon as she was released by the police the same afternoon, the victim left California indefinitely.
Thomas was later found dead in the motel bathroom from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
“Having to go through an event of that nature, I can only imagine, would be one of the most difficult things,” Lt. Hoffman said. “I commend the victim in this case for her bravery and being able to sustain that. She’s fortunate to make it out alive.”
