Woman abducted by Michigan escapee tells harrowing tale

CNN

(CNN) — Locked in a gas station bathroom, the woman whispers into her cell phone, an escaped Michigan murderer banging on the door.

“He didn’t say where, exactly, he just said somewhere far,” she says in a 911 call, telling the dispatcher about the escaped convict she says abducted her some two hours before with a box cutter and a hammer.

She slipped away from him when they stopped for gas.

“He’s knocking on the bathroom door saying, ‘Let’s go!’ ” the 911 dispatcher says to other emergency workers in recordings released by authorities.

The Sunday night call from an Elkhart, Indiana, gas station was the first sign of convicted Michigan murderer Michael David Elliot since his escape hours before from Ionia Correctional Facility in central Michigan.

Prison authorities discovered Elliot missing about 9:30 p.m. Sunday. He apparently pulled back the bottoms of two fences and crawled underneath to escape, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman Russell L. Marlan said Monday.

He was serving four life sentences on a 1993 conviction for killing four people, and authorities warned the public not to mess with him.

“We would advise anyone who sees the vehicle or they see Mr. Elliot to not take matters into their own hands,” Michigan State Police Lt. Troy Allen said Monday.

The woman, whose name has not been released by authorities, told a 911 dispatcher from her bathroom stronghold that Elliot forced his way into her red Jeep Liberty as she sat parked on West Main Street in Ionia.

He was an escaped convict, he told her. Murder, she said. And he had a box cutter and a hammer.

But, she said, he hadn’t hurt her.

“He just wants to get someplace far from Ionia,” she told the dispatcher.

Unfortunately for police, by the time they arrived at the Marathon gas station, Elliot had fled in the woman’s Jeep.

He was last seen getting on Interstate 80/90, but authorities don’t know which direction he was traveling or where he was heading.

The interstate connects Elkhart with Chicago to the west and Toledo, Ohio, to the east.

Elliot was known as a good prisoner, according to Corrections Director Daniel Heyens.

“Nothing in this man’s history would have indicated a high risk of escape,” Heyens said. “He was serving his time.”

Prison authorities believe he acted alone, Heyens said.

According to court documents, Elliot was convicted in the August 1993 murders of Vickie Currie; her boyfriend, Michael Tufnell; his brother Bruce Tufnell; and Kathy Lane, CNN affiliate WXMI reported.

Elliot and three others hatched a plan to steal drug money, WXMI said, and after they didn’t find the money, Elliot and another man killed the four victims and set Michael Tufnell’s house on fire.

CNN’s George Howell, Rick Martin, Holly Yan and Chuck Johnston contributed to this report.