July 26, 2017 was a day Jordan Dinsmore would never forget. The young 20-year-old was returning from work to her apartment when three men appeared and abducted her at gunpoint.
At the time, Jordan could not have known that the men who accosted her were responsible for a string of robberies, carjackings and kidnappings that had begun nearly 3 weeks before.
Jordan, a student at the University of South Carolina, screamed but they threatened to shoot her if she didn’t stop. She was then forced by the men, at gunpoint, to get into the back seat of her 2009 Scion. The men wanted to drive her to an ATM so they could rob her.
That was when the men hit a snag in their plan–Jordan’s car was a stick shift, and none of them knew how to drive it. At that point, one of the abductors ran away.
The other two forced her to get into the driver’s seat and drive to an ATM. All the while, Jordan was thinking about what might happen to her if she didn’t find a way to save herself. At the ATM she took out $300, but unfastened her seatbelt. The two captors told her to keep driving, and were speaking of their plans to sexually assault her before letting her go.
At a press conference held by law enforcement Jordan recalled, “At that point, I decided that it’s time, and I need to get myself out of this situation. I was thinking, ‘Can I crash the car?’ No, because it might knock me out and not them. ‘Can I pull over or something?’ I have to get away from them.”
It was then that Jordan remembered an important lesson her mother, Beth Turner, had taught her long before. It turns out her mother had been caught up in a similar experience, where she had nearly been sexually assaulted in college but managed to might the man off and escape. Said Jordan, “I thought that I am going to be strong like my mom, and I’m going to get myself out of this.” Beth had taught her daughter to never let an attacker take her to a second location, because that was were the threat became more serious and the chance of escape became next to nothing.
Finally, Jordan saw her chance. She had missed a turn and the suspects wanted her to pull over to the side of the road. While they were distracted, Jordan put the car in neutral, opened the door and jumped out! The car was moving at about 35 miles per hour when she made her leap to freedom.
Because the kidnappers couldn’t drive a stick shift, they fled. Jordan ran toward a nearby gas station and a passerby stopped to help her.
The police have applauded Jordan’s bravery and her cool head in a harrowing situation. Jordan Dinsmore is pursuing a criminal justic degree and hopes to one day become an FBI agent.
Police later arrested three teenager who now face a slew of crime spree charges. Law enforcement believes that the three men were responsible for seven “separate incidents of armed robberies, some to include carjacking and kidnapping,” according to a press release from the police department.
