A kidnapped US woman was found dead after phoning family from car trunk

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Malta Today

A kidnapped US woman was found dead after phoning family from car trunk


Rita Maze spoke with her family and with police after being hit on the head and abducted from Montana, but was found dead in her car 523km away


8 September 2016, 8:51am

A woman was kidnapped at a Montana rest stop in broad daylight managed to speak with her family and police on her mobile phone before she was found dead in the trunk of her car, 523km away from where she disappeared.

Rita Maze, 47, called her husband on Tuesday evening and said she had been struck on the head and that she was in the trunk of her car, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton said.

Maze’s husband reported her missing. Dutton said that he spoke with her several times on the phone.

“She didn’t know her location, but she was able to talk to them over her phone, sporadically, as coverage faded in and out,” Dutton said.

Read more: http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/world/69389/a_kidnapped_us_woman_was_found_dead_after_phoning_family_from_car_trunk_#.V9ESAuRTGbx

[truthisfreedom]

1. Why are we reading about this in Malta Today?

[Judi Lynn]

3. It was the only one on this event I saw at the time. Here's another, later one, your worship:

Kidnapped Montana Woman Calls Husband From Trunk, Dies Before She's Found

Sep 8 2016, 4:43 am ET
by Alex Johnson

A Montana woman was able to phone her husband and even talk to police from the trunk of the car in which she was being help captive, but she was dead by the time investigators found her more than 250 miles away in Washington state, authorities said Wednesday.

Rita Maze, 47, was driving home to Great Falls after having visited relatives in Helena, Mont., when she was accosted at a rest stop on Interstate 15 on Tuesday morning, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo C. Dutton said at a news conference.

Her body was found inside the car shortly after midnight Wednesday in a parking lot outside Spokane, Wash., International Airport, Montana and Washington authorities said.

Maze, a school cook, called her husband Tuesday night from the trunk of the car, telling him she'd been struck on the head, Dutton said. "She's saying she's kidnapped," Dutton said.

More:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kidnapped-montana-woman-calls-husband-trunk-dies-she-s-found-n644341

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. Poster asked an honest question. Your snarky "your worship" was terribly rude. Get over it. . . nt

[lonestarnot]

14. Poster didn't have to read it if unhappy with source. What were you expecting red carpet?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Ah, Catch-22 again. You have to read the post to find out you don't want to read the post. :eyes:

The DU member was not "unhappy with the source". They did not say either way.

They just questioned why the OP chose that source.

A simple question, a simple answer would suffice.

PS. The snark was in the post Title.

[BlueMTexpat]

4. Besides being an island in the Mediterranean,

Malta is also a small "city" in MT. The woman was kidnapped at a rest stop in MT. It is unclear from the OP story whether she was actually a Montanan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta,_Montana

Interestingly, a newspaper in Australia (!) provides much more detail. And yes, she was a Montanan. http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/news-life/american-woman-found-dead-in-boot-of-car-despite-making-a-desperate-phone-call-for-help/news-story/f2afed35e3e4fbcfe32e026140812b17

[jamzrockz]

11. But we can

tell that the malta is not in Montana, because why else would they be using the metric system?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Why use metric? Because the only unenlightened countries are USA, Liberia, and Burma. . . . nt

[BumRushDaShow]

5. If you look at the link

it has the ".MT" (Montana state domain name) in the URL.

[sl8]

8. The top level domain "mt" stands for Malta, the country, not Montana, the US state

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_top-level_domains

[oberliner]

6. Because that's the local paper from where this crime took place?

You think it should be covered more widely?

[sl8]

9. How would "Malta Today" be considered a local paper for a crime occurring in the U.S.?

Malta Today "About us" page:

http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/about-us/

[bananas]

16. It's like a Donald Trump interview

Or like Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine.

[oberliner]

21. Weird

Point taken.

[suffragette]

19. Because it is receiving international attention and coverage?

[Quantess]

2. That is horrific!

I wonder why she was targeted.

[maxsolomon]

17. Probably because she looked vulnerable and her car looked up to the drive.

Helena to Great Falls isn't that far, but they drove her to Spokane. It's unlikely they meant for her to suffocate.

I'm surprised the state troopers in MT, ID, and WA weren't on the lookout for her vehicle if she'd made contact with her family. Presumably they called 911.

Presumably.

Another sad and pointless death. When they catch the perpetrators, the motive will probably be drugs.

[EL34x4]

24. I never understand these pointless crimes of violence.

If the perps had simply stole her car and left her on the side of the road, they'd barely register a blip on police radar. Instead, by adding kidnapping and murder into the mix, they've guaranteed a massive police response and decades in prison after they're caught.

Then again, many criminals ain't too bright.

[closeupready]

29. She didn't suffocate, though; she was shot dead. Shot in the chest,

from the WP article.

[maxsolomon]

30. oh, i didn't see that. that's really horrible

the perp will be looking at life.

[Blue_Tires]

10. Sad, but why is this news in Malta?

[Judi Lynn]

23. The news source was the only one carrying the story I could find at 2:14 in the morning,

when I posted the article. Clearly, the story goes onto wire services, and newspaper offices operating during their work hours pick it up and post it for their audiences.

The US newspapers ran their articles when they went to work, today, and the Washington post posted its story, which I just added, only after 4:00 pm.

I can't actually understand how the SOURCE of the story actually became more important than the news story itself. Amazing.

I'm glad I didn't go with my original impulse and claim "My Aunt Fanny" as the source for this horrific story of one woman who was locked up, alone in her car trunk, invisible to the rest of the world, trying frantically to reach her family and getting them, and the police, and getting them, too, and still getting shot, after struggling so hard.

[Blue_Tires]

25. Calm down, madam

I was just curious to know, and I'd already mentioned in passing that this is an obviously tragic story....

Besides, you got more replies in this thread than I get in 80% of the threads I post, so I don't quite see what your problem is...

[christx30]

26. You're getting a lot of undeserved crap

for posting this story. I thank you for posting it, no matter what the source may be. It's important that people know about it, and I have posted the link on my Facebook as well.
Very sad that this happened to this woman. I hope the perp is caught and spends the rest of his life in prison. Disgusting excuse for a person.

[jonno99]

27. I'm baffled too as to why the "MT as a source" is such a big deal - when

obviously the death of the abducted women is so much more serious.

Thanks for posting this.

- another reminder to maintain "situational awareness" when traveling (and any other time for that matter...).

[cvoogt]

12. better source

CBS

That Malta paper is indeed in Malta, Europe.

[Person 2713]

15. Sounds like they took her car to get to another place. Wonder how they got to the rest stop

A lot of strange .

[maxsolomon]

18. Hitched?

Montana can be a weird place, but this is just random.

[Judi Lynn]

22. Stuffed in her own car trunk, an abducted woman phoned her family. But it was too late.

Stuffed in her own car trunk, an abducted woman phoned her family. But it was too late.

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
September 8 at 4:19 PM

Rita Maze was so panicked, her family in Montana could hardly make out what she was saying. The call might have been her one chance to survive, but the cell signal was dropping in and out.

Maze told them she knew that she was in the trunk of her Pontiac Grand Prix. She knew that a “large man in a black hoodie” had hit her over the head with something heavy, then stuffed her in the back of the car. She knew he had her gun.

The car was moving, she told her husband and daughter — but she didn’t know where it was going.

. . .

On the way back to Great Falls, she filled her car with gas, then stopped at a rest area south of Craig, about 50 miles from her house, Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton told the Great Falls Tribune. Maze typically kept a gun in the car for safety.

More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/true-crime/wp/2016/09/08/stuffed-in-her-own-car-trunk-an-abducted-woman-phoned-her-family-but-it-was-too-late/

[Peregrine Took]

28. There was a similar event years ago in my neighborhood but somehow she got away...

after being driven around for at least a day in the trunk of her car, sexually attacked many times.

The Police got the asswipe, though, as they located the car on the street parked on the near north side. They sat and waited and waited for the dude to come out and drive away and then ...they got 'em!