True Crime Campfire - This is Not a Joke: The Abduction of Karen Kummerer

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Sometimes, there’s no easy way out of the dark place you find yourself in, especially if that dark place puts you under the control of someone stronger than you, someone dangerous and unpredictable. And as much as you might fantasize about action-movie struggles and daring escapes, there are other ways to fight back. You can use your smarts and your courage to decide on a course of action that’ll give you the best chance of survival, and stick to it no matter what. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is just keep going. Join us for an amazing story of stalking, obsession, rage...and incredible courage. Sources:Investigation Discovery's "House of Horrors," episode "Terror By the Letter"Investigation Discovery's "Escaped," episode "Obsessed Kidnapper"https://www.discoveryplus.com/video/house-of-horrors-kidnapped/terror-by-the-letterhttps://www.discoveryplus.com/video/escaped/obsessed-kidnapperhttps://caselaw.findlaw.com/fl-district-court-of-appeal/1142978.htmlhttps://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-2007-11-21-cfbriefs21-3-story.htmlhttps://www.naag.org/attorney-general-journal/an-update-on-the-legal-landscape-of-revenge-porn/#:~:text=In%202017%2C%20the%20number%20of,an%20increase%20of%20over%20100%25.&text=In%202019%2C%20a%20larger%20study,number%20of%20victims%20from%202016.Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. Sometimes there's no easy way out of the dark place you find yourself in. Especially if that dark place puts you under the control of someone bigger than you, stronger than you, someone dangerous and unpredictable. And as much as you might fantasize about action movie struggles and daring escapes, there are other ways to fight back. You can

use your smarts and your courage to decide on a course of action that will give you the best chance of survival and stick to it no matter what. Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is just keep going. This is This is Not a Joke, the abduction of Karen Coomerer. So campers, for this one, we're in Daytona Beach, Florida, November 27, 2006. It was going to be a beautiful warm fall day, not that unusual for y'all lucky-duckies down in Florida, but the sun wasn't even up yet when Karen Coomerer got up and started getting ready for work. That was her routine. Get up at first. 5.30, have coffee and breakfast, get herself put together, and leave for work by 7.

Karen was 49 years old, and not long ago, her 20-year marriage had broken up. In the aftermath of that, she'd left her native New Hampshire and moved down to Florida, where her sister lived and where the winter climate was just a scoche or too warmer than it is in New England. And, as you might have figured out from the whole getting up for work at 5.30 thing, it didn't take her long to start putting a new life together down there. She got a good job as a financial director for a local hospital. she was making it work, starting to find her stride again after the divorce. Life, Act 2.

Just before 7, Karen, in her snazzy suit and heels, got in her car and started driving to the hospital for work. On the way there, she noticed a warning light on her dashboard, telling her the trunk was open. This had happened before. I guess she wasn't one of life's slammers, and some trunks just need a good slamming. So she pulled over and walked around to the back of the car to close the trunk. and as soon as she touched the car the trunk came flying open a big man dressed all in black

leapt out and grabbed her with one hand in his other hand he had a knife he dragged Karen around to the passenger door of her car she screamed of course and he tightened his grip on her arm and said if you do that again I'll cut you right here it was enough to keep her quiet the man shoved her into the passenger seat of her car and hurried around to get behind the wheel

Karen was scared out of her mind, and not just from the sudden shock of the attack, but also because she'd just realized that the man in black was no stranger. She knew him. He was Scott Freeman, her ex-boyfriend, and she was terrified of him. Scott drove Karen's car to his house, and with the knife back in his hand, dragged her into his own vehicle, a black jeep, packed up for a long trip. He started driving. Karen noticed a pair of tan suede gloves on the dashboard.

they gave her a bad feeling. It was hot out. Why would he need gloves? What are those for, she said. So I won't get your blood on my hands, Scott said. And that was just the start of a day's long nightmare for Karen Coomerer. So how did we get here to this smart, accomplished woman suddenly becoming the lead in a scene that could have come straight from a horror movie? Ten months earlier, Karen had just moved down to Florida and she was feeling kind of lonely. Her son was back up in New England. She was single for the first time in decades. She had friends, but she wanted something more. She wanted a companion again. And then one night she was out at a bar with her sister, and a guy asked her to dance. He was a little younger than she was, and he seemed

fun, and he was good-looking if you're into that kind of thing, by which I mean he was a personal trainer, and he looked like a fridge in a suit. Dude was huge. He would have fit right in, jumping off the chopper with Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura and Predator. Okay? That guy. He introduced himself as Scott Freeman. Karen danced with him, and after that they went for a walk on the beach. They were getting along, and when Scott asked for her phone number, she gave it to him. And before long, they were dating. Scott moved fast.

He focused all his attention on Karen, showering her with flowers and compliments, making her feel like the most important person in his world. And I think you all probably know what love bombing is by now, and you probably also know that it can be real damn hard to resist, especially if you're in an emotionally vulnerable place like Karen was at the time. There were a few things in their early relationship that in hindsight were super red-flaggy, but at the time didn't seem like a big deal. Like when they'd been dating just a couple of weeks, Karen went out with some people after work.

When she got home, there were 10 voicemails from Scott waiting for her. All friendly, flirty stuff, nothing weird, but, you know, 10 voicemails? Mm-hmm. Within a couple of months, Scott had moved into Karen's pretty pink ranch house, which isn't usually a great idea. And before y'all send us angry emails, I'm sure it's worked out great for some of you. And sometimes it will. Sure. But like, if your relationship is younger than your leftover Halloween candy, maybe don't move in together or get married or buy a timeshare together or whatever.

It's bold of you to assume that I have any leftover Halloween candy at this point. You just inhaled it all. Yeah. That's what I'm saying, though. That's a young relationship, man. That's true. We've said it, you know, we've compared it to Brita filters in the past. The spinach, the spinach that you forgot you have in your fridge, you know, just kind of, is this, are we moving too far?

Perishables. Yeah. Yes. Think that in your brain. And once he ensconced himself in Karen's house, Scott started letting his mask slip, where before he'd been gentlemanly, now he was controlling. Before he'd been full of compliments, now he's full of critiques. I mean, he had her now, so why keep up the act? He was free now to be himself, by which I mean a useless, insecure man-child with an unwashed ass.

Yeah. Y'all know the type. You know exactly who I'm talking about. Everything about Karen was fair game for Scott. He criticized how she dressed, how she acted, what she said, who she picked for friends. He'd yell at her, working hard to make her. her feel as dumb or cheap as possible. And I guess if you squint, it makes a certain kind of pathetic sense for an insecure guy dating a woman who's a lot smarter and more successful than he

is. I mean, you got to do something to level the playing field, right? Yeah, God forbid you just enjoy being with this really cool person that you went out of your way to win over. Nah, break her down, man. That'll give your little desiccated reason of a hard few seconds of smug satisfaction, right? Which I'm sure is way better than an actual relationship. Mm-mm. No, no, no. Everyone knows that pathetic little raisin-headed man-children need to feel superior to everyone, even when they are so far from the mark. Over the next few months, the good times got rarer, and the verbal abuse escalated into physical abuse, leaving Karen with huge bruises on her arms. But every time it happened, Scott was contrite and weepy. He'd change. He swore. It had never happened. And for a week or two, that would be true.

But then, as predictable as a sunrise, Scott's temper would start ratcheting up. And the little rage goblin would crawl out again. Karen, of course, was having serious doubts about the relationship. But contrary to popular belief, it's not always easy to get out of a situation like this, especially when you're living with the guy and you're already physically afraid of him. Right. I think the statistic is that it takes a victim of abuse about seven times to successfully leave their partner. Yeah.

But everybody has a breaking point, a point of no return, and one night Karen reached it. She and Scott were laying in bed together, and he started on her, yelling at her about 101 things she couldn't do right that day. And Karen just realized she'd had enough. She got up out of that bed, thinking she'd go to her. sleep in the guest room, and Scott flipped his shit. He jumped up, shoved her to the floor, pinning her down, and for the rest of

the night, he just loomed over her, screaming and yelling in her face. Yeah, I haven't been through that exact thing, and it's fucking awful. And that was it. The next day, Karen kicked Scott's sorry ass out of her house. She hoped she'd never have to see him again.

But, you see, for a control freak loser, like Scott, moving from being dumped to stalking was as natural a move as a maggot turning into a fly. How dare that bitch try to get away from me? All I did was treat her like less than garbage. Why would she have a problem with that? Women want to be treated like shit, don't they? I assume that's the inner monologue of the Scots out there.

That plus like a bunch of self-pity. Like, all I ever did, blah, blah, blah. Shut the fuck up. Mm-hmm. Before long, Scott started showing up at Karen's house, uninvited, and with no warning. He started calling her constantly, leaving message after message. One weepy, the next one angry, and when that didn't get him what he wanted, he decided to get creative. He turned to page 17 of the abuser's playbook. Blackmail. See, back when they were dating, Scott had taken some sexy naked pictures of Karen. She hadn't really wanted to do it, but he talked her into it. he still had the pictures and threatened to send them to her bosses at the hospital if Karen didn't take him back. And just imagine what kind of a shriveled, fucked up husk of a soul you have to have to do this to try and force somebody to date you. Why would you even want that to be with somebody

who hates you? It'd just be exhausting. The thing is, for Scott, this was all about control. In his mind, Karen was his property, and all he needed was for her to continue to be his. Love, genuine affection, even liking her. Clearly these were completely irrelevant, probably totally foreign concepts to him. And this little blackmail scheme would open up a whole new aspect of Karen's life that he could control, her career, and how her colleagues saw her, and that was something that meant a lot to Karen. This was in 2006, by the way, and this problem has gotten astronomically worse since. According to the National Association of Attorneys General, incidents of revenge porn, which isn't exactly what this is, but definitely in the same ballpark, gone up more than 400% in the past

five years. So revenge porn, of course, is where like a vengeful ex will share your sexual pictures or videos without your permission, usually somewhere on the internet. Whereas what Scott was doing to Karen fits a little bit better with the term sextortion, but they're very much, you know, in the same region, I think, and very much motivated by the same shit-stain way of thinking. Do what you want or I'll ruin you. So anyway, 48 states plus the District of Columbia have criminalized it, but people are still very much doing it, and it can be hard to prove and hard to prosecute. So the problem is still going strong, unfortunately. And here's the thing is an honorary friend of the show, Gavin De Becker, kind of refers to this in his book, The Gift of Fear, aka the TCC Bible,

where he talks about if somebody is blackmailing you with something like this, the best thing you can do is take their power away. Right. And it might be embarrassing. It might be humiliating and that is the point of it. But if you can go to your boss, if you can go to your family and say, listen, this

motherfucker is telling me that he's going to send you these pictures. I want you to know that that might happen. Because again, once it's out there, the power's gone. The black male isn't going to work anymore. And I've also seen some very

very intelligent young people and the younger generations, I sound so old, where they are subtly editing their noodles, their nudes, and like putting time stamps and who they're sending it to, like editing it so you can barely see it

so that they can identify who leaked what, which I think is fucking brilliant. It's brilliant. Yeah. God, it's horrible that we would have to do such a thing. It's horrible. So yes, that would be the way to handle it, but like a lot of us would, Karen gave in to Scott's demands, both because she was worried about losing her job and because she was scared

shitless of him. If he would go this far, threatened to tear her whole life apart, what else might he do? Were there any limits? She was afraid to find out. So after that, they were dating again? I mean, that's not the right word, but I don't know if there actually is a right word to describe the shape of this relationship at this point hostage situation, maybe, until Scott's violent temper flared up again, and Karen tried yet again to cut off all contact with him. She was scared to live alone, so she asked her niece Brenna to move in with her, and she told the security guards at her job to keep an eye out for Scott. On November 11th, Scott called Karen's phone 27 times, leaving a whole series of threatening messages about how he could get to Karen any time

and Brenno wouldn't be able to stop him. As scary as all this was, what this rancid slab of beefcake had just done was provide solid evidence of his stalking and threats. It meant Karen finally had something she could take to the police. But would she get the chance? On November 13th, as she drove to the courthouse, Karen pulled up to a stop sign in her neighborhood. Scott Freeman burst out of the bushes at the side of the road and leapt into the passenger seat of her car. He still had the keyless entry fob from when they were dating,

and he just unlocked the door before he pounced in there. He took out a knife, held it to Karen's throat, and told her to drive. And all the while, he ranted and raved about how this was all her fault. She'd forced him to do it. That's what they always say. You forced me to do this.

This is all your fault. He needed to see her, and she wasn't taking his calls, and blah, blah, blah. And if she went to the police, he would kill her. If she ran away from Daytona Beach, he'd be able to find her because he had her social security number. He was all over the map, threatening and needy in the same breath. The guy it was clearly unstable, and she knew from experience that he was more than capable of violence. Karen thought there was a real possibility that she could die right there in her car.

But her experience had also taught her a few things about how to handle him, namely that the way to calm him down when he was like this was to give him what he wanted. Just let him win. So she told him she'd see him that night, and that chilled Scott out enough that he actually got out of the car and let her go to work. In a panic, Karen called her sister, who, of course, told her she needed to go to the police right now, get all this on record and apply for a restraining order. That was probably the right call, but Karen still had to be talked into it, which is actually understandable, because your mind always wants to go right to a restraining order. And they can be a useful tool, but, you know, as our buddy Gavin DeBecker has pointed out, and also a number of experts in this field, FBI profilers, et cetera, have said that really the best situation in which to apply for a restraining order is one in which you're pretty sure the person will comply with it. Right.

Because if you're not sure of that and if your concern is that it's just going to make them furious, then that might not actually be the best way to. proceed because sometimes the restraining order itself will end up being what triggers an incident so it's just important sometimes it's a great idea sometimes it's not it depends on the situation so karen i think was aware of all that and still she kind of had to be talked into that now going to the police i think was essential the restraining order part is what i'm talking about right she knew how angry that would make scott how angry any of it would whether she just went to the police and made a report or what and how dangerous that could make him. But, you know, ultimately she didn't really see any way around it. So eventually she went ahead.

Karen got the restraining order on November 21st. It said Scott could be arrested if he came within 500 feet of her. This didn't do much for Karen's state of mind, though. She was scared to leave the house. She couldn't go to the store by herself. Every day, Brenna called to make sure she had made it to work, and in the evening, Karen called back to tell her she was on her way home. And she let Brenna know that if she didn't show up within a few minutes of when she was supposed to, something had gone horribly wrong. Karen had even talked with her sister and Brenna about what they should all do if Scott kidnapped her.

And on November 27th, which is where we started this story, those fears became awful reality. When Scott burst out of the trunk of Karen's car and kidnapped her at knife point, She'd had the keyless entry for the doors changed after the last time he busted in on her car, but she didn't think to do the same for the trunk. Well, of course. I mean, most of us wouldn't expect somebody to hide in our trunk and jump out at us like some flippin Dolph Lundgren Jack in the box. It just wouldn't occur to us as a possibility.

And it genuinely wouldn't have occurred to me that those would be different. You know what I mean? Like I just would have, until now I'd be like, oh, damn, now I know, now I know I got to change both. So now she was in Scott's black Jeep, driving north, trapped beside the man she had been in mortal terror of for weeks. She knew there was a good chance he would kill her. She thought, this might end with my body in a ditch somewhere. At least for this early stage of the road trip from hell, Scott had a plan. He took Karen's credit cards and cell phone, then made her call in sick to work.

After that, he had her call her niece Brenna with a prepared story. Karen was with Scott because Scott was threatening to kill himself and she was trying to help him get through it. I'm okay, he made her tell Brenna. I'm here of my own free will. Don't call the police. Scott probably thought he was being extra crafty here. But the thing was, Karen had already told everybody close to her what to do if something like this ever happened. Look, she told them, if I ever call on Sam with Scott for any reason, then no matter what I say, call the cops and tell you. them I've been abducted. Smart girl. Yeah, I love that.

Yep. So when Brenna got that phone call, her whole body went cold. She knew what must be happening. She must have wanted so badly to say, Aunt Karen, are you okay? Has he hurt you? But she had to know he was listening.

So she had to just say, okay, no problem. Thanks for letting me know. Oh, God. And the second she hung up the phone, Brenna dialed 911. As the Daytona Beach PD were jumping on the case, unbeknownst to him, of course, Scott made a stop just a short way to the north in St. Augustine. Here, he bought one change of clothes for Karen, then took her to the bank and made her withdraw $500.

And he was right by her side the whole time. So if you're wondering why she didn't make a run for it or yell for help, he was right there with his knife in his pocket, and Karen had no doubt he would try to kill her. And who knows who else if they tried to get in his life. way. Exactly. Investigators had no idea where Scott was or what he was doing with Karen. All they had was the phone call to Brenna, but Scott's past behavior and the fact that Karen had a protective order in place had them worried. They put out a statewide be on the lookout on his car. Karen didn't know it yet, but a whole group of people were already working to bring her home safe. That night,

That night, 13 hours after abducting Karen, Scott pulled into a motel. With what she knew about Scott, Karen had by now decided on how she was going to handle him, by being totally submissive. She was going to do whatever he wanted. It was humiliating, but she thought it was her best chance of staying alive. And let me stop just a second to say what an incredible amount of courage that must have taken and what an incredible amount of emotional strength. When survivors tell their stories, there's always a lot of judgy, like, Monday morning quarterbacking.

Well, if this happened to me, I'd have done this or I'd have done that. You hear a lot of, well, I'd have fought like hell and stuff like that. And it's understandable to think about what we would do if we were ever in that situation. Like, of course you're going to think about it. There's nothing wrong with that. But the fact is, you don't know what you're going to do until it happens to you. And not only that, but there's more than one way to fight back. There's brute force, which good for you, if you've got the physical wherewithal to use that successfully.

But there's also just doing what you have to do to get out alive. And in my opinion, one is no better than the other. I think Karen chose exactly the right strategy here. She used what she knew of her abductor, and she made the decision to do what she had to do to get out of there. And to me, that is every ounce as badass as getting the guy in a headlock and holding him there while you call the cops. So I just wanted to say that right out of the gate. Oh, absolutely. I call what you just refer to backseat victiming.

And it's so frustrating. Like, oh, I would have totally just kicked his ass. Like, all right. Sometimes that might have worked. But Karen knew Scott. She knew exactly how to get him to calm down, to de-escalate. And, you know, this backseat victiming thing, sometimes it feels like a way to, like, shame the actual victim or set yourself apart from them. And, like, we do that all the time, especially, like, with cult cases, like, how could you ever fall for Charles Manson?

How could you ever fall for Jim Jones? And while it's tempting to think that you could, quote, do better, remember that none of us were there. Yeah, absolutely. So in the motel room, knife at the ready, Scott made Karen undress and then put on a t-shirt. He told her they were going to act like they were still together, then told her it was time to get into bed. Karen thought, if I refuse, he'll kill me. And she was probably right. Afterwards, Scott forced her to take sleeping pills, because, you know, he wanted to make sure he got his beauty rest without having to worry that she might escape.

I'm sure he was just getting off on the amount of control he had over her, too. He was even taking charge of her sleep. The next morning, they were back on the road. Karen's still a little groggy from the sleeping pills. As they drove, Scott veered back and forth between telling Karen how much he loved her and ranting at her that this was all her fault. Karen worked hard to stay calm so she could keep him calm too, but inside her head was spinning, desperately trying to figure a way out.

She didn't dare make a run for it or make a scene. She was too scared of what he might do, so she'd have to think of something more subtle. Back in Daytona Beach, Karen's bank records led police to that withdrawal in St. Augustine, and they got security footage of Scott looming next to Karen at the counter at the bank, pointing at where he wanted her to sign her name. This at least told him that as of yesterday, Karen was still alive. But it also told them that Scott was on the road,

and that meant he could be nearly anywhere within hundreds of miles. They canvassed all around St. Augustine with no results. They needed a break. By the next night, Scott was hundreds of miles. miles away, pulling into a motel just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. Throughout the whole trip, Scott would only choose hotels that took cash and didn't need ID. If he stopped at one that wanted a credit card or driver's license, he'd just get back in the Jeep and move on. He knew the cops would likely have a trace on Karen's credit cards by now. The second night of Karen's

abduction went just like the first, only this time, as she drifted off from her forced dose of sleeping pills, she noticed a little pad of hotel notepaper on the bedside table. and then she was asleep. Scott, by the way, was not limiting his pharmaceutical shenanigans to Karen's sleeping pills. He'd picked himself up a little crack habit, too, which is just what a guy like him needs to put the cherry on top of the Maniac Sunday. And his drug habit meant that even though motels were pretty cheap, $500 was not going to last too long.

In the morning, just as they were about to leave the motel, Scott turned his back on Karen for just a second, and she jumped at her chance. She grabbed that little pad of paper she'd seen the night before and stuck it deep down in her pants pocket. She didn't really know what she was going to do with it, just that it might come in useful. That day, Scott continued to drive through North Carolina, apparently with no particular destination in mind. When he stopped for a bathroom break, Scott told Karen not to try anything and stood right outside the bathroom door while she was inside.

But for Karen, this was her chance. Hands shaking, she took out the hotel notepad. found a pen in her purse and wrote a message. My name is Karen Coomerer. I've been abducted. Please call the Daytona Beach PD. This is not a joke. Yep.

Karen folded the note and stuck it in a short way behind the paper towel dispenser. A second later, Scott started hammering on the door and telling her to hurry up. Karen was suddenly scared. There was a cleaning woman in the next stall. What if she found the note right away and said something? But she couldn't back out now. She didn't know if she'd ever have another chance. As she opened the bathroom door, Scott grabbed her arm and told her he had his knife ready.

Then he bundled her back into the Jeep and hit the road. This was a complete shot in the dark. Karen had no idea if someone would find her note or just toss it unread into the trash. If somebody did read it, she didn't know whether they'd take it seriously. How many times have we seen that on the show? You're way too many. But it didn't take long for a lady to find Karen's note. And it's a miracle, but she actually did take it seriously.

Police and Daytona Beach were hugely relieved to hear something from Karen, to know she was still alive. And now they had somewhere to focus. Local police combed the area near where the note had been found, but Scott and his Jeep were far away by then, headed west. Later on, he stopped for food at a barbecue. place in Bryson City, a little town in the Great Smoky Mountains close to the Tennessee border. The chef there, Dana, was out front having a cigarette when the Jeep backed it

into the parking spot. And as Karen got out, Dana took a look at her face and thought, geez, what's wrong with her? Karen, to say the least, didn't look happy. A half hour later, Dana went to the bathroom and found a folded piece of paper stuck behind a paper dispenser. My name is Karen Kumerer. I've been kidnapped. Please call the Daytona Beach PD. This is not a joke. As Dana read the note, she thought immediately about the worried-looking woman she noticed getting out of the black jeep about 30 minutes before. She just knew it in her bones. That woman had left this note, and she was in trouble. Dana didn't hesitate. She called 911. Good for her. the police who by now were working with the FBI had gotten two notes from Karen in the same day

they felt they were frustratingly close to rescuing her they had traces put on credit cards bank accounts and cell phones but so far those hadn't given them anything Scott was still being cautious only using cash and keeping the cell phones turned off Karen's notes were their best lead I just love Karen so much this lady is a survivor man And the way she kept her head through all this just blows me away.

I have had chills since I learned about this case. Yeah, well, waity here, describe it herself, too. I mean, she's been on interviews a few times and you just want to shake her hand. Yeah, she's a bad bitch, but like the good kind. Absolutely. Good bad bitch. That night, Scott used a pay phone to call his mom. I guess mom hadn't heard from him in a few days, you know.

And he didn't want to leave her hang in. He was just like, hey, Mom, just wanted to let you know that Karen and I are taking a little vacation together. But Mom had been watching the news, and she had a rude awakening for her little man. Yeah, basically, Scott, what the hell are you doing? You're wanted for kidnapping. Now, this was a dangerous moment for Karen, and she knew it. As Scott ranted and raved about the police investigation in their motel room that night, she was terrified. What if Scott watched the news, and they mentioned it? something about the notes that she'd been leaving. He'd kill her if he knew she'd been

trying to get help. But as scared as she was, Karen knew those notes were her only potential lifeline, and she was determined to keep leaving him whenever she could. It made her feel like she still had some agency left, a way to try and help herself. But shitty Scott threw a wrench into her plans when he decided they were going to spend all the next day and night in the hotel room. She wasn't sure why. Maybe the conversation with his mommy had gotten to him, maybe his ass was hurting for driving for three days straight. Who knows? Whatever it was, it meant Karen had no chance to leave a note on Thursday. And that had the investigators hunting for her seriously worried. The lead detective from the Daytona PD thought it was pretty likely that Karen was

dead. She thought this case was likely to end with Scott killing Karen and then himself, and we've seen situations like this end that way many times. And without intervention, I think that's exactly what was going to happen here. Given Scott's temper and the fact that he didn't seem to have any plan beyond wandering across the South, the situation was going nowhere good. By Friday, December 1st, Karen had been in Scott's clutches for five days, and it was a bad day for minute one. Scott woke up angry and got steadily worse as the day wore on, more and more aggressive and out of control. He was stressed because they were running out of money, and because now he knew for sure the cops were after him, and I'm sure the crack habit wasn't.

help him with this mood. Specifically, they were running out of Karen's money, and I guess that made it her fault somehow, in whatever damp wad of scrambled eggs were passing for Scott's mind at that point anyway. So that day, following whatever weird internal map he had in mind, they headed south again. During an afternoon bathroom break at a gas station in Trenton, Georgia, Karen took the chance of writing another note. She still had no idea whether anybody was passing these on or even reading them.

But yet again, her shot in the dark soon struck home. A vacationing couple stopped at a gas station for the same reason as Scott and Karen, and while the lady was washing her hands, she noticed a folded note stuck half behind the faucet. My name is Karen Coomerer. I've been kidnapped. Please call the Daytona Beach PD. This is not a joke. The hair on her neck prickling, the lady called the police from the gas station. And with alerts about Karen's case lighten up all over the region,

police were searching the roads around Trenton within a few minutes. But yet again, they were just a little too late. But at least they knew Karen was still alive, and that was huge for everybody, especially the people back home who loved her. Later on that day, Karen left another bathroom note in a tiny little town of Sneed, Alabama, and yet again, a stranger found it, and called the police, which is, I think, one of the most astonishing things about this case, is that every single note was found

and every single person who found one reported it. That's amazing to me. I've never seen anything like that. No. So everybody called a cops, but by the time they got there, Scott's Jeep inevitably was long gone. Karen was starting to feel hopeless. She didn't know if anybody had found her notes or called the cops about them. All she'd known for nearly a week was terror and stress,

and she was starting to think nobody would ever come for her, that there was no way out. and Scott was rapidly losing what little control of himself that he had. They needed money to keep on traveling, so he ordered Karen to call her niece, Brenna. Scott told Karen just what to say and told her to make it convincing. She was to tell Brenna she was fine and not to worry. Brenna was to forge Karen's signature on a check for $600,

and Scott's mom would come over and pick it up. If you heard the recording of this call without notice, knowing what was really going on. Chances are you wouldn't think this lady's in trouble. Karen sounded a little rush and a little stressed, but lots of people do. She stuck to Scott's script and acted just like he told her. It wasn't good enough for Scott, though. As soon as she hung up, he started yelling at her that she'd screwed it up, done it all wrong. And then he drove down a quiet road and parked the Jeep. I'm really tired of you, he said, shoving Karen's head up against the window, so hard it hurt.

I'm going to get rid of you. Then he called his mom and told her to get that money into his account as fast as possible. Scott, you're just making things worse for yourself, his mom said. But Scott didn't want to hear it. Shut up, he snapped at her. The investigators, of course, were listening in on this call, and it worried them. Scott sounded unhinged and dangerous. The guy clearly had no plan here, beyond.

driving around and burning through a fast dwindling supply of cash. As he got more stressed and more desperate, the likelihood of this case ending in blood was growing fast. On Monday, December 4th, it had been seven days since the abduction. As you might know, in kidnapping cases, the chances of survival go down pretty damn fast after the first few days. Karen thought that if she wasn't rescued that day, Scott would kill her. He wasn't showing any of his old twisted affectionate.

anymore. Karen thought that now he just wanted to use her to get some more money, and that once he did, it would be over for her. Scott was getting careless. He called his mom again to hurry up with the bank details, and he used his own cell phone. This told the investigators that he and Karen were in central Mississippi, so they alerted local law enforcement to be on the lookout for the Jeep. By now, the FBI had full access to Scott's bank account, and they also had cooperation of his mom, who, I guess, was trying to avoid the worst outcome for both Scott and Karen. So they put $125 into the account and had Scott's mom call and tell him about it. Scott went straight to an ATM and took out the cash.

And that, Camper's, was it. The FBI had been flagged as soon as he used the card. And now, they knew where he was. Scott left the ATM with his cash clenched in his hand and drove off. Police and FBI agents were swarming the roads all around. Close by the small town of Leland, a car passed Scott's Jeep going the other way. Scott noticed. That's a policeman, he said.

Karen didn't know what he was talking about, but if he was wrong about everything else in his life, Scott was mostly right about this. And if anyone from the FBI is listening, look, I know you guys love your dark sedans. I'm just saying that if you put your agents in those cute little VW bugs with the eyelashes on the lights, they probably wouldn't get made quite so easily. Just a little free advice from True Crime Can't Fire. A little ladybug dots, one of the red ones. Nobody's going to think that's an FBI agent in there. The driver of the other car was Special Agent Anne LeHay, and she knew she was on the lookout for a black Jeep.

It was hard to miss this one. There were no other cars on the road. Agent Le Hay made a U-turn and called for backup as she closed in on the Jeep. She pulled up alongside and looked over at the occupants. Both of them were staring rigidly ahead, but Agent LaHay could tell that Karen was terrified. She was sure this was the kidnapper and his victim. Soon after that, several cars from the local sheriff's office blazed onto the scene, lights flashing, and closed in on Scott from behind. They thought he'd pull over. But instead he floored it, the Jeep jerking forward at top speed with Scott screaming and swerving all over the road and the police following right on his tail.

Karen was screaming too, thinking for what must have been the thousandth time that week that she was about to die, that Scott was going to fly off the road and wreck, either on purpose or because he lost control of the Jeep. He flew through Leland at over 100 miles an hour, but after that the police cars managed to surround him, boxing him in and slowly decreasing their speed. Scott was forced to slow down too, and he's screaming, Give me a minute. Give me a minute. Okay, sure.

No problem. Like he's taking a little too long at the cash register trying to put his card away and not holding an abducted woman in his car. Fuck off, Scott. Yeah, they're not going to give you a minute, dipshit. Eventually, the deputies brought Scott's Jeep to stop. Guns drawn, they pulled open his door and shoved him down onto the asphalt. The deputy helped Karen, who, of course, was trembling and

crying out of the Jeep. And she wrapped her arms around him and asked, do you have a gun? Of course he said yes, and she said, I'm never letting you go. Bless her, Art. It's the first time she'd felt safe in a week. A little while later, police helped her call her family to let them know she was finally safe in coming home. As for Twat Freeman, the man who had always bullied and threatened his way into getting whatever he wanted, he was charged with four felonies, the big one being kidnapping with the weapon. A year after his arrest, he was is sentenced to life in prison. As she later told investigation discovery, it took a long time for Karen Kumerer to come to

terms with what Scott Freeman put her through. A long time for her to stop thinking about those seven days in hell. She needed anti-anxiety meds and therapy, had nightmares and flashbacks. But she is, as I think we've already shown, a true warrior, and she's worked really hard to make her experience mean something. Her advice for people suffering from domestic abuse is that there are more avenues of help and support than you might be aware of, and you should never feel nervous or ashamed about seeking them out. And as somebody who lived through a relationship with a guy a lot like Scott when I was in college, I could not agree more with that. Listening to Karen's story in her own words on the show escaped, I was just stunned again and again by how familiar it sounded.

Not the abduction. Thank God, my ex never went that far, although he did hold a gun to my head a couple of times and the threat to kill us both. But everything beforehand, for sure. I mean, the guy even tried to blackmail me the way Scott did with Karen. And for a really long time, I was so afraid to talk about it, as I felt like I'd let this ridiculous man treat me this way, and I felt like it devalued me somehow, like made me damaged goods. I was ashamed of myself for letting myself be treated that way. But what I've realized in the years since then is it's not my shame to bear. It's his. And people like him, they count on our shame. They count on us being too scared or too embarrassed to reach out for help. So, Camper's, if you're in an abusive

situation, don't fall for that. It's not our shame. It's theirs. And there's a whole different life out there for you. Karen is living proof of that. And so am I. So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. We also want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Kirstie, Liz, Hillary, Alicia, Woman Interrupted, awesome name, and Tracy. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out.

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