ALGOMA TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WZZM)- A Kent County man is in jail accused of tying-up and then kidnapping his girlfriend at a local gas station. It was all caught on surveillance tape at the Northern Springs gas station on 14 mile road in Algoma township.
Witnesses tell us that the man in the surveillance video is 22-year old Andrew Cheslek. He has not been charged yet, but witnesses say he is the man who grabbed the woman and put her in his vehicle. She had her hands tied behind her back and was asking for help. She tells police that she had been assaulted and held against her will.
Brett Ferguson was the clerk who saw it all. Just before 6 a.m. on Friday, he says a man walked into the store. As he stood at the counter, a woman walked in with her hands tied behind her back. "She said, help me. He bound me up. Tied me up. She said call 911."
Ferguson says within seconds, the man grabbed her. Ferguson says she tried to get loose. "She tried, but he just bear hugged her. He was bigger than her, she's kind of small."
Ferguson called 911. When police arrived, they gathered surveillance photos and released them to the public. The pictures were also sent to the other J & H gas stations in the area.
Lt. Chuck DeWitt with the Kent County Sheriff's Department says, "It was a witness from one of the stores that he has frequented and identified him."
Investigators went to a home just off of Algoma road. That's where they found the man from the video. He told them that he and the girl had a relationship. "They've known each other for about 3 years. It's an on-again, off-again relationship", says DeWitt.
Investigators say the two had some kind of fight, but won't say why the woman had been tied up.
Andrew Cheslek has since been taken into custody and is lodged at the Kent County Jail. Detectives say they found evidence related to the crime inside his home.
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