A woman who was kidnapped at a Montana rest stop in broad daylight was able to talk with her husband by cellphone several times and even talked with police, but she was dead by the time authorities found her vehicle 325 miles away near Spokane International Airport, Montana authorities said. The manner in which she died, is still under investigation.
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Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said Mrs Maze had called her husband using a mobile phone on Tuesday, and said that she had been hit on the head near Wolf Creek, north of Helena. They used cell phone towers to narrow down her location and found her auto in a parking lot in Spokane, the station reported. Rita Maze told her husband that she believed she was in the trunk of her own vehicle, but she didn’t know where the auto was heading.
Rita Maze of Great Falls spoke with her husband and daughter by cellphone Tuesday evening. Though police in Montana and Washington initially described Rita Maze’s death as a homicide, now they aren’t so sure, reports KHQ.
The FBI said Wednesday it had identified a potential suspect, and some news reports indicated a person had been pursued near the industrial area where Maze’s body was found.
No motive has been released in Maze’s abduction, which appears to be a random attack on a woman making a routine road trip, authorities said.
Maze’s body was found in the trunk.
“I told her that I loved her”, Rochelle Maze told the Tribune through tears.
“We know where the body was located; we know where she started out”, he said. Her vehicle was found three hours later, her body in the trunk. “She didn’t know where she was and (said) that she had been driving for a really long time”.
Rochelle said her mother’s credit card was used to make purchases at gas stations in Kingston, Idaho and Ritzville, Washington before she called her husband at 10:25 p.m. saying, “Help me”. Bob Maze told the police that he had last spoken to his wife at around 11:30 that morning and hadn’t heard from her since.
“She was talking to my Dad and had told him help me, help me, she was in the trunk of her auto, she thinks she was hit with something or by someone, she didn’t really see”.
Maze was a longtime cook at Morningside Elementary School in Great Falls, Montana.
Rochelle Maze said her mother told her that she was overpowered by a “massive guy” who was about 6 feet, 5 inches tall and wearing a black hoodie. The coroner’s office didn’t say what type of gun killed Maze.
“My mom had no enemies”.
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KREM-TV reports that Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said they have not ruled out any possible means of what happened, including suicide. “There’s an outpouring in this community that you would not believe”.
