(ProsperNews.net) – A Texas woman called 911 and told police she had just shot a man because he kidnapped her. The 45-year-old Montgomery resident told Gillespie County Sheriff’s office that she was robbed and drugged and wasn’t sure of her location. Officers later found her at a winery near East US Highway 290, where she was able to describe the car and gun used in her alleged kidnap.
Deputies subsequently found the vehicle on the outside lane of a nearby highway, with a dead man inside. They identified him as 49-year-old Houston resident Lance Damon Reid.
The Sheriff’s office said the two people knew each other, and a statement identified the alleged victim as Amy Maynor Lejeune, a 45-year-old from Montgomery, who met Reid shortly before the incident. The couple reportedly planned a weekend away, but their plans changed when she accused him of drugging her. Authorities took the woman to hospital but released no further information about her condition.
Investigations into the case are ongoing, but experts say if evidence is found that Lejeune was indeed kidnapped, she had the right to use lethal force against her captor. Kidnapping is a third-degree felony in the Lone Star State, carrying a penalty of up to 10 years in prison.
Aggravated kidnapping is defined under Penal Code Section 20.04 as the intentional abduction of a person to hold them for ransom, to use as a shield or hostage, or to facilitate a further crime, including causing bodily harm, sexual abuse, or terrorizing a third party. These elements increase the offense to a second-degree felony with a prison term of up to 20 years. Administrating drugs to an individual without their knowledge is also a serious offense that can lead to a five-year jail term.
Texas Penal Code 9.32 states that a person can use deadly force if they reasonably believe it is immediately necessary to prevent their own or another person’s abduction or to impede a murder, sexual assault, or robbery.
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