Three people were yesterday scheduled to appear in a Canadian court on charges of kidnapping in a bizarre case that burst into public view after a car full of naked people deliberately rammed another vehicle on a road in Alberta.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were called to the scene of a collision earlier this week in an industrial park in Nisku, south of Edmonton. They arrived to find a white BMW that had crashed into a truck.
In the BMW sat five people, all of them naked, despite the centimeters of snow on the ground and temperatures that hovered at about minus-10°C.
Police described the crash as a “purposeful collision” and said drugs or alcohol might have been a factor.
The five people were arrested at the scene.
The RCMP later said that the strange saga had actually begun about 20 minutes before the collision, when two adults and a six-week-old baby were taken from a residence and forced into a vehicle.
The male victim — who had been stuffed into the trunk of the car — managed to escape from the moving car. Minutes later, so did the woman, holding the baby.
A passerby noticed the man on the side of the road and stopped to pick him up. The woman and baby followed shortly after.
The good Samaritan was later identified as an employee of Leduc Plumbing and Heating by company co-owner Derek Scott.
“Apparently they came out of the ditch with no shoes on, so he stopped to see obviously if they needed help,” Scott told CTV News. “It’s the middle of the winter and people running around with no shoes on — you stop to help them.”
After the three people climbed in the truck, it was targeted by the suspects’ car.
“They rammed him from behind — the unclothed people in the BMW,” Scott said.
The force of the collision pushed the truck into a ditch.
Shortly after they arrived on the scene, police and firefighters removed the five suspects from the car, cuffing their hands behind their backs.
“There was no covering,” Scott told the Canadian Press. “The guy had to do the walk of shame in front of everybody, then two more women did the walk of shame in front of everybody. Then the one lady was the last to be removed — she put up the biggest fight. It was a pretty wild fight. It took five people to get her out.”
The victims — an older man, a woman and her baby — sat in the truck quietly as the arrests were taking place, he said. “I think they were just happy to be OK, happy to not be in a car full of naked people anymore.”
Police said the victims were not injured.
The RCMP on Tuesday said that they had arrested five suspects: a man, two women and two female minors.
The three adults remain in police custody while the minors have been released without charges.
Police declined to name the accused in order to protect the youth involved.
A 27-year-old man and two women, 35 and 30, were to appear in an Alberta court on charges of kidnapping and resisting arrest.
Amid questions regarding why the suspects were naked at the time of their arrest and whether they were naked at the time of the alleged abduction, police have said an “extensive investigation” is ongoing.
“The RCMP believe this was a targeted incident and that all parties were known to each other,” police added in a statement.
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