A woman who authorities say was kidnapped after meeting a man in New Mexico last year and eventually brought to New Jersey reportedly managed to escape her alleged captor by making a mad dash for a nearby gas station.Â
James W. Parrillo Jr., 57, was arrested on Feb. 7, after the woman, whose name has not been released by authorities, allegedly escaped from the Bass River Township residence they shared and fled to a nearby gas station, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Friday.Â
Parrillo is charged with first-degree kidnapping, second-degree strangulation and aggravated assault, and third-degree criminal restraint. The woman met Parillo, whom she knew as “Brett Parker,” at a gas station on Interstate 10 in New Mexico sometime in February 2022,” according to court documents.Â
At his request, she agreed to give him a ride to Arizona. The woman said she was in a voluntary relationship with the defendant for about a month when he physically assaulted her while the two were in California, at which point she felt unable to leave the relationship, prosecutors said.Â
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During their time together, Parrillo allegedly took away the woman’s phone, confiscated and utilized her debit cards, and isolated her from her family. The pair allegedly arrived in New Jersey sometime in December.Â
They had been staying in the rented room in Bass for about two weeks when the woman managed to escape. Noticing an interior deadbolt on the door of a nearby gas station during a prior visit, the alleged victim planned to flee to safety there when an opportunity presented itself.Â
On Feb. 7, Parrillo began beating and choking the woman during an argument inside the residence, which they shared with several other individuals. The man stopped when he realized the two were not alone in the house, and she ran out with nothing on but shorts and a shirt in…
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