Tennessee Kidnapping Victim Rescued In Louisiana After Sending Text To Sister

A badly beaten woman who was kidnapped from Tennessee on Saturday was rescued in Slidell, La. after she sent a text message to her sister.

A Tennessee man, Lee Meadows, 34, who was recently released from jail for domestic violence charges, kidnapped the victim.

The victim's sister called Slidell Police and told them that her sister was kidnapped from Tennessee, and was raped and beaten at a Slidell hotel. Officers surrounded the hotel, found the room, and kicked in the door.

They found the kidnapped woman in the hotel room badly beaten, and in need of medical attention. She was treated at an area hospital for multiple serious injuries including several broken bones.

Meadows was booked into the Slidell City jail on charges of battery by strangulation, second-degree battery, false imprisonment and forcible rape. He was then transferred to the St. Tammany Parish jail.

Police sat down with the victim at the hospital and heard her disturbing story.

She said Meadows kidnapped her in Tennessee and brought her to Slidell because he had friends in New Orleans and wanted to get out of Tennessee because of pending criminal charges, Slidell police said. Meadows took her cellphone and all her belongings.

He checked them into the hotel where he allegedly proceeded to beat, choke and rape the woman multiple times, Slidell police said.

Eventually, the victim got to a phone and fired off a text message to her sister that she was somewhere outside New Orleans, police said. The sister took that message to police in Tennessee who tracked that it was sent from a hotel in Slidell.

"Had it not been for the determination of the victim to survive, and the swift actions by Tennessee authorities and the officers at the Slidell Police Department, we could easily be working a homicide right now," Slidell Police Chief Randy Smith said in a Facebook post. "Hopefully our criminal justice system will put Mr. Meadows away for a long time to where he won't be able to hurt anyone ever again."

[Source]