I want to be very clear right up front that I’m not suggesting the unnamed woman who is the victim here did anything wrong. On the contrary, what doesn’t make sense to me about this story is how many risks she had to take to get help. Here’s the backstory.

The unnamed woman in Pennsylvania was dating a man named Corey Brewer. Then last fall she sought an order of protection against him, which suggests the relationship did not end well. According to the victim, things took a turn for the worse at the beginning of May when Brewer kidnapped her, sexually assaulted her and then threatened he would kill her if she tried to leave.

Apparently no one knew this was happening until July 8 when workers at a Walmart found a note posted on a mirror in the woman’s bathroom. The note described the situation in detail, naming the kidnapper and including the exact address where she was being held. The note begged anyone who saw it to call 911. The note ended, “If I don’t make it tell my family I love them.”

And here’s where things stop making sense:

Police say the note at the Walmart stated that she had been sexually and physically assaulted as well as held against her will. She said Brewer had a knife and that whoever reads this should call 911, as this isn’t a joke.

When police went to the address on the note, no one answered the door, but documents state that they could hear furniture being moved in front of the door.

So they have a note claiming a kidnapping and sexual assault from a woman who had a previous protection order against the man in question. They go to the house listed in the note and can hear someone moving around inside even though no one answers the door. Seems pretty suspicious to me. Granted, I’m not an attorney but I would have thought a note saying, essentially, Help, I’m a prisoner and I’m being raped at this address! would count as some kind of exigent circumstances which would allow police to break in and search the place. But in this case the police just left because they didn’t have a warrant.

The next day, police tried calling a cell phone number for Brewer, the alleged kidnapper, and he picked up:

On Friday, officers phoned Brewer and asked to speak to the victim. She talked to police on speaker phone as Brewer listened, telling them that she was with her boyfriend. Brewer told the officers that he and the victim were on vacation in New York, WPXI reported.

Obviously the victim couldn’t ask for help because she was still in the room with her kidnapper who was threatening her life. But it appears the police left it it there until the next day when another note was discovered in another woman’s bathroom.

A day later, a second note appeared in a public restroom near the Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater museum in Mill Run, Pa., ABC News reported. It said the victim was not really on vacation with her boyfriend in New York and that she was still in danger.

The message was found just days after police knocked on the door of the address in the first letter. The new note said the victim had “heard the police knocking at the residence, that the abuse hasn’t stopped, and please don’t give up,” according to the criminal complaint.

The police checked security cameras and could see the victim was walking around the site with Brewer who had obviously lied about being on vacation in New York. At this point they contacted the victim’s ex-boyfriend who told them he hadn’t seen her since April and was trying to report her missing. Finally, police were able to get a warrant and went back to the house listed in the first note. Cue the belated happy ending:

SWAT was able to take Brewer into custody and take the victim to the hospital. According to the complaint, the victim said she never ran because Brewer threatened to kill her and her children…

Brewer is facing multiple charges, including involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, strangulation, sexual assault, terroristic threats, simple assault and unlawful restraint.

Admittedly, I’ve watched far too many police procedurals in my life but I have so many questions about this story. Did police take the information in the first note to a judge and he refused a warrant? If so, that judge must be an idiot. When police left the house mentioned in the first note after hearing noises inside, did they leave someone behind to watch the house? Did police consider it a risk to call the alleged kidnapper and ask to speak to the victim? She had told them he was threatening to kill her. Did they consider the possibility that he might sense the cops were closing in and follow through on the threat? Why didn’t they try to contact the woman’s ex-boyfriend until after the second note? And why did it take the ex-boyfriend more than two months to report the woman missing?

Again, I don’t mean to make light of what sounds like a very dire situation but this whole story reads like a dark comedy in which a clever woman is trying to escape a kidnapper and no one will help her! 

Here’s a local news report. The final strange moment in this story is that despite multiple charges against Brewer including sexual assault and terroristic threats he was released on $500 bail.