Kidnapping victim says she feared for her life
A man accused of kidnapping a woman and her six children and raping the woman described it as an “impulsive, stupid thing,” while the woman testified Tuesday that she was terrified he would hurt her.
Jesse Edward Brown, 39, who was living in a Davenport homeless shelter at the time of the Nov. 28 incident, is charged with first degree kidnapping and sexual abuse second degree. If convicted of first degree kidnapping, he could receive a mandatory life sentence.
He described the incident in a videotaped interview with a Silvis police detective a few hours after his arrest and said he only wanted to talk to the woman, and took them out for a drive.
The 29-year-old woman, who knew the accused, testified that she feared for her life and the lives of her children after they were taken from their Silvis home and driven aimlessly around the Quad-Cities area early in the morning before Brown rented a room at The Traveler Motel in Bettendorf. At the motel, he forced her to have sex while the children slept.
The woman said that she had tried to end the relationship prior to the incident.
The prosecution rested after the woman completed her testimony.
Brown, in the videotaped statement presented at the trial Tuesday, said he was getting mixed messages from the woman and wanted to talk them out. In the videotape, Brown appears unshaven, disheveled and agitated.
“She’s always saying we’re going to get a place, we’re going to get a place, we’re going to get a place,” he said in the video. “I didn’t really have any intentions to hurt her. I just wanted to scare her.”
The woman testified that she agreed with him on several occasions just to get him to stop calling her at work, fearing she would lose her job because of Brown’s constant calling.
Brown, armed with a knife, was waiting outside the woman’s house when she arrived home shortly before 2 a.m. He led her and three of her children in the house where she stayed with her grandmother and the other three children, she testified. At the time of the incident, the children were between the ages of 10 months and 10 years.
He hit her, bloodying her nose, and demanded money, she testified. She gave it to him, hoping he would leave. Instead he led her and all six children out of the house to the woman’s blue Dodge Durango. She, her grandmother and the children didn’t want to go, but they agreed.
“I did what he told me to save my life and my kids’ lives,” she said.
While driving, she convinced Brown to let her stop at a convenience store to get something to drink, she told the jury. While they were stopped she tried to get a customer’s attention to call for help, but Brown saw her, got angry and ordered her to drive away.
At some point, they returned the woman’s grandmother to her home. The grandmother, who testified that she was in shock after the incident and had trouble finding a telephone, didn’t call for help until about an hour after being dropped off.
The woman, Brown, and the six children drove to Iowa and the woman told Brown she was tired, she testified. He agreed to get a motel room, but refused to pay for a room at the Holiday Inn. Instead, he drove her to the Traveler.
Once inside, he told the children to go to sleep, the woman said. They sat on the bed and Brown wanted to talk, but she was too tired. She fell asleep and woke to Brown touching her in a sexual manner. Knowing he had a knife, she had sex with him. She testified that she wouldn’t have had sex with him if he didn’t have a weapon.
As Brown watched television, he learned that police were looking for the woman, her children and the vehicle. As they left the motel room about 8 a.m., Brown was arrested by Bettendorf police officers who had been alerted by the motel desk clerk.
Kurt Allemeier can be contacted at (563) 383-2360 or kallemeier@qctimes.com.