Police found her body just after midnight Wednesday in the trunk of the black Grand Prix near Spokane International Airport – 325 miles west of a rest stop where she was abducted, police told reporters. The investigation resulted in a nationwide search for the Montana woman’s vehicle following her desperate phone call, which came to a head when her body was found in Washington.
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She also said she didn’t know whose trunk she was in and that her kidnapper had her gun. She managed to use a cellphone from inside her own auto, reaching her family and a few investigators.
Rita Maze (left), spoke with her daughter Rochelle after she had been kidnapped. Her family told police she called them from the trunk of her auto to say she had been kidnapped by a large man in a black hoodie and that she loved them.
A woman kidnapped at a Montana rest stop in broad daylight spoke with her family and police by cellphone before she was found dead in the trunk of her auto 325 miles away from where she disappeared.
“Help me, help me”, Rochelle Maze said her mother told her and her father, Bob Maze.
Three hours later Mrs Maze’s body was found in the boot of her vehicle, which had been abandoned around 325 miles away from the service station near Spokane International Airport, Washington.
“It makes no sense”, her 23-year-old daughter, Rochelle Maze, said. Rochelle Maze said her mother’s credit card had been used to make purchases at gas stations in Kingston, Idaho and Ritzville, Washington.
KHQ-TV reports an officer called Maze’s cellphone number Tuesday night. She was a child at heart at all times.
Members of the Great Falls community set up a GoFundMe page for Maze, who worked as a cook at an elementary school.
Her daughter, Rochelle Maze, told the Great Falls Tribune that her mother sounded “terrified” and “hysterical” during their 10-minute phone conversation. She was at a rest stop Tuesday morning when “a large man in a black hoodie” hit her on the head and put her into the trunk of a vehicle. Dutton said authorities were seeking a “person of interest”, but he provided no further details. “I know she did not”.
While the story told by Rita Maze appears to be in doubt by authorities, they are still investigating her death as a possible homicide and not ruling out any possibilities. “She was always swimming with us in the pool and throwing us around”.
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Police said there is a person of interest in the investigation who is believed to have stopped off at a petrol station to fill up the auto between Spokane and Montana.
