A Montana mom was abducted from a rest stop in broad daylight and taken on a harrowing, 325-mile ride by her captor while frantically talking to her loved ones by cellphone before authorities found her dead in the trunk of her car.
Rita Maze, 47, made the desperate call to her husband Tuesday night, telling him that someone had hit her on the head at an Interstate 15 rest stop near Helena, Mont., and stuffed her inside the car’s trunk, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton told reporters Wednesday during a news conference.
“She didn’t know her location, but she was able to talk to [family members] over her cellphone, sporadically, as coverage faded in and out,” Dutton said.
The devastated husband, who immediately reported the kidnapping to police, spoke to his wife several times by phone, as did the couple’s daughter, Rochelle Maze.
Rochelle told the Great Falls Tribune that her mom was “hysterical” and, at times, hard to understand during their 10-minute phone conversation.
“I told her that I loved her. That’s the last thing she heard,” Rochelle said. The line went dead and the two were unable to make contact again.
‘I told her that I loved her. That’s the last thing she heard.’
- Rochelle Maze, Rita's daughter
The last person to speak to Maze, a former elementary school cook, was a Helena police officer shortly before she died, Dutton said.
Investigators were able to pinpoint her location with the help of a license plate reader that captured her car’s plate number near Post Falls, Idaho. They also traced her cellphone.
Police finally discovered her corpse in the trunk of her car around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday near Spokane International Airport in Washington, police said. Her cause of death was pending the results of an autopsy.
Dutton said detectives were eyeing a possible suspect and reviewing surveillance footage from a convenience store.
The FBI has joined the investigation, but has not released a motive or further details about the crime.