Maze, an elementary school cook who was driving back from visiting family in Helena, called her husband and daughter just before 10:30 p.m. Tuesday and told them a big man in a black hoodie had hit her over the head and put her in the trunk of the auto after she’d stopped at a rest stop near Wolf Creek, about 50 miles south of her home.
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Rita Maze, the Great Falls woman who was kidnapped on Tuesday and found dead in Spokane County, Washington, on Wednesday, died from a single gunshot wound.
After police were able to track her location via her mobile connection, they eventually found Maze’s body in the boot of vehicle near the Spokane International Airport in Washington at around 12:30am local time. Maze called her husband from the trunk of her auto and said a man hit her on the head and that she was now in the trunk of her vehicle.
“My mom had no enemies”, she said. The Spokane County Sheriff’s Office says they don’t believe there is any imminent threat to the community.
Deputies say they have identified a person of interest after investigators gathered identifying information from surveillance video, ABC Fox Montana reports.
An Idaho license plate reader notified authorities that the auto had crossed into the city of Post Falls, the affiliate reported.
No cause of death was released, but Dutton said that Maze’s death was believed to have been a homicide and that she was believed to have been killed after the vehicle arrived in Spokane.
She stopped at a rest stop and it’s there that she disappeared, later calling 911 and saying she’d been hit on the head and put in her own trunk.
“We do know that Rita was in Helena visiting her relatives earlier that day”, Dutton said.
During her phone call, Maze had told her husband she was anxious the abductor might find the gun, a 9mm Ruger, that she kept in her purse.
“Help me, help me”, Rochelle Maze said her mother told her and her father, Bob Maze.
Maze was initially reported missing from Montana Tuesday morning by her husband. She told her husband and daughter she loved them.
He told the Review people should hesitate to call Maze’s death a homicide “until we actually find out what is going on”.
The Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Office, the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are all collaborating on the case.
About two hours later, his phone rang. “We don’t know if she hung up or what”.
Police are now viewing surveillance video taken from a shop and the Federal Bureau of Investigation is also investigating as the kidnapping crossed state boundaries.
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A GoFundMe campaign to support Maze’s family had raised almost $10,000 by Thursday morning. Taking us on park days and always being a kid with us.
