Authorities dropped charges against a truck driver accused of kidnapping a woman he met online in Missouri and taking her to the Twin Cities.
The Ramsey County Attorney’s office charged Demarcus Kenneth Green, 31, with one count of kidnapping after his a woman told police she woke up inside his semi-trailer in St. Paul early last month, court documents say.
The woman said she met Green in St. Louis May 5 after connecting with him on a dating website. The last thing she said she remembered about their date was sharing some beers and marijuana inside his semi.
The next thing she knew it was two days later and she was in Minnesota, according to the woman’s statements to police.
Panicked, she said she tried to escape but Green grabbed. She eventually managed to wrangle herself away and jumped out of the truck near Hudson Road and Van Dyke Street for help, court documents say.
Officers tracked Green down at a manufacturing company in Shakopee and arrested him. He told police that the woman agreed to travel to Minnesota with him and that the two had engaged in consensual sex during the trip. Their decision to part ways in St. Paul also was consensual, he said, adding that the woman was lying about what happened because she was mad at him for not buying her a bus ticket back home.
New evidence about what happened led the attorney’s office to drop the case, according to office spokesman, Dennis Gerhardstein.
“As the investigation continued after we charged the case, we were presented with new evidence that contradicted our understanding of what happened and posed a significant barrier in our ability to prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt,” Gerhardstein said.
He added that if additional evidence surfaces that helps clarify what happened, the county attorney will review the case again.