Cops credit victim's smarts, other clues that led to deranged abductor

EVEN BEFORE the clues fell into place leading investigators to rescue Carlesha Freeland-Gaither, Detective James Sloan knew two things: The 22-year-old abduction victim was more clever than her captor, and she was going to make it home safely.

"I won't say something if I don't believe it," Sloan said yesterday of the promise he'd made to Carlesha's mother, Keisha Gaither, early in the investigation, that she would see her daughter alive again.

The first of many clues that led to Freeland-Gaither's safe return home after authorities found her in Jessup, Md., with her alleged kidnapper on Wednesday was provided by the young woman herself, police said.

She had dropped her cellphone on Coulter Street near Greene, where police say Delvin Barnes, 37, accosted and abducted her Sunday night. Police said they believe that Freeland-Gaither - whose family from the get-go had described her as a fighter - left the phone behind intentionally.

"She's an intelligent girl," Sloan said. "She left it there for us to find."

Sloan also credited Dwayne Fletcher, a man who he said happened to be nearby and witnessed part of Freeland-Gaither's valiant effort to escape her captor - including her knocking out a window of Barnes' gray Ford Taurus - and frantically called 9-1-1 twice. Fletcher, police said, waited until officers and detectives arrived and provided the first detailed account of the abduction, before police obtained the heart-pounding surveillance video showing Freeland-Gaither's struggle.

"If it wasn't for him, I don't think we'd have the same outcome. This man is a hero," Sloan said of Fletcher. "If he didn't make the phone call, if he didn't wait, all we would have had is a cellphone in the middle of the street. We'd have a missing-person report."

By Wednesday, although nearly three days had passed since Freeland-Gaither's abduction, police said several clues had surfaced pointing police to Barnes - including surveillance photos of him using her debit card at a Maryland ATM and an empty potato-chip bag with a receipt from a Northeast Philadelphia Acme supermarket.

The luck of the accused kidnapper - who federal authorities yesterday said had confessed to abducting Freeland-Gaither, to whom he had no prior connection - was dwindling.

When Barnes allegedly abducted Freeland-Gaither, investigators in Virginia were already hot on the felon's trail, authorities said. They had been hunting him on a warrant in a vicious attack last month in rural Charles City County in which he allegedly had kidnapped, raped and brutalized a 16-year-old girl, said Special Agent J.J. Klaver of the FBI's Philadelphia Field Office.

When news broke of Freeland-Gaither's abduction, the Virginia investigators had a hunch that Philadelphia Police were searching for the same man - especially given the description of his gray Ford Taurus seen in the Germantown surveillance footage.

That sedan would prove to be a linchpin in rescuing Freeland-Gaither and locking up Barnes.

The man who had sold Barnes the Taurus told the Virginia cops who were looking for Barnes that he'd installed a GPS in the car as a precaution against buyers with bad credit, said Kevin Connolly, who supervises the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force in Richmond, Va.

The car dealer provided that team with the vehicle's last known location on Wednesday, and hours later a separate team of federal and local officers grabbed Barnes in a parking lot in Jessup, Md. According to a federal affidavit, Freeland-Gaither was found in the back seat of the sedan, with the window she had shattered in her escape attempt Sunday night covered in plastic.

Cops whisked the hysterical - but physically healthy - Freeland-Gaither to Howard County General Hospital, where Sloan and his partner, Detective John Geliebter, later arrived with her parents.

Of everything he's done in a 22-year career, the unassuming Sloan said, the moment when he first laid eyes on the woman who he and his fellow officers had worked around the clock to save will stick in his mind forever.

"I said, 'I've been looking for you.' She started crying, her mom hugged her and her father embraced her. Touching moment," Sloan said at an afternoon news conference at Northwest Detectives, standing at a microphone after rushing home to don a suit and tie.

For Sloan and Geliebter, who have worked together for 17 years, Freeland-Gaither's case hit close to the heart. "We both have daughters that are about the same age as the victim," Geliebter said yesterday. "Not that you need a daughter to realize, but it just hits home more."

Yesterday, after the detectives had driven Freeland-Gaither and her family home from Maryland, her relatives stayed inside her mother's home on Marvine Street near Diamond in North Philadelphia.

Northwest Police Division Inspector James Kelly visited with them for about 20 minutes in the afternoon. He said they had requested privacy. He didn't say where the young woman was staying.

"She's at an undisclosed location trying to get some rest," Kelly said. "That I can tell you."

As Freeland-Gaither began to heal, surrounded by those who love her most and bolstered by Philadelphia police, her accused captor appeared in court in Howard County, Md. He waived his right to extradition to Virginia, where he is charged with attempted capital murder, rape and related offenses in the earlier attack on a teen.

Officials brought Barnes to Virginia late last night to face those earlier charges.

Eventually, when that case is resolved, Barnes will be brought to Philadelphia, where he'll face federal charges for Freeland-Gaither's abduction.

Kelly said that because federal authorities will take over Barnes' criminal case, the focus of police in Philadelphia will shift to helping Freeland-Gaither's family.

"There's a lot to take in," he said. "There's a lot of healing that has to happen."