HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. (WFLA) – Dee believes she is lucky to be alive. She didn’t want to reveal her face, nor give her complete name, but she is the victim of a violent kidnapping case that began in Hillsborough County on Mother’s Day morning.
Right now, Hillsborough sheriff’s detectives are searching for 32-year old Cody Jackson the man accused of kidnapping the young woman.
Dee says she’s known Jackson for about a year and allowed him to stay at her home in Seffner. On Sunday morning, she says, he started beating her for no apparent reason.
“Threw me down to the ground and started choking me and punching me in the face and then pulled me into the house,” said Dee. “I was crying still and I said please stop doing this and he picked up a wire and tried to get a wire around me but I stopped it. But he threw me down on the floor again and choked me again with his hands.”
During the attack, Dee says Jackson picked up an extension cord and used it to tie her up and forced her in the back seat of her own car. He proceeded to drive to Citrus County, all the while, she says he kept beating her to a point when she thought she might lose consciousness.
The two finally ended up at a gas station on Main Street in Inverness. Jackson went into the store and left Dee in the car. She was able to free herself and get out of the car and proceeded to pound on the window of the convenience store, hoping the clerk would be able to call for help.
“She didn’t know what to make of me at first. Cause the door was locked and I’m banging on it saying let me in,” said Dee. “And my eyes got big, she didn’t know what to do at first. She was a little shocked and then she realized what was going on.”
Jackson fled the area and paramedics rushed Dee to an area hospital. She is bruised and battered, but doctors were able to release her to a friend on Tuesday afternoon. She’s now staying at an undisclosed location for her safety. That got her thinking, why would authorities release the name and location of the hospital where she was originally taken? What if Jackson was trying to locate her?
“I mean, he could have come back in at any point, because, even though his name was out there they wouldn’t have known that at the front desk,” said Dee. “He just could have gone right through.”
She says she believes his intention was to finish the job he started.
“He had said that I was going to die today,” Dee recalled. “That one or both of us were going to die today.”