Rape victim was blindfolded, held for $20,000 ransom

For nearly 24 hours, the world of a Juniata Park woman was filled with darkness as she was kidnapped, raped and held for $20,000 ransom, according to police.

Now authorities are searching for the two men and one woman who took her on a journey to hell and back before dropping her off - violated but alive - in Fairmount Park on Tuesday.

The woman, described by neighbors as a mother and business owner, was kidnapped in front of her home on Lawndale Street near Pike about 9:30 p.m. Monday by a man who pulled her clothing over her head and threw her in a van.

After a long drive, the woman told police, she was taken into a house, bound to a chair and later put in a closet. She was blindfolded the entire time, police said.

While locked in the closet, she used a cell phone to call her mother about 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, and police initiated a search that morning, Special Victims Unit Capt. John Darby said.

The woman told police that at some point, the man who abducted her brought her out of the closet and raped her.

Darby said the captors made two calls overnight to associates of the victim demanding $20,000 for her release.

Police were searching for her Tuesday morning as far away as Bensalem before she was found - bound and half-dressed - along Belmont Mansion and Chamounix drives in Fairmount Park about 5:20 p.m., Darby said.

Darby said that the woman did not know her captors but that her abduction did not appear to be a random act.

"There was a persistence of money, of looking for money, so that obviously convinced us that the primary motive here was money," Darby said. "It's obvious to us she was targeted."

No money was paid to the woman's captors, police said.

Neighbors said the victim owns a day-care center. One neighbor said that the woman's 4-year-old son and one or more children whom the victim was watching Monday night were left alone after she was abducted and that the woman's family broke a front window to get the kids out Tuesday morning.

Anyone with information on the assault is asked to call the Special Victims Unit at 215-685- 3251.