A Merrillville man who Valparaiso Police said abducted a woman by knifepoint
on Saturday, only to release her later, abducted her again on Sunday, the
Porter County Sheriff’s Police said.
Only this time, police said, he cut her with a knife, then kidnapped her
3-year-old daughter before abandoning the child in Portage.
Charles Wade, 26, is facing charges in connection with Saturday’s incident
of kidnapping, burglary, intimidation, criminal confinement, and auto theft,
the VPD said on Monday. He is also facing additional charges of kidnapping,
carjacking, and battery with a deadly weapon in connection with Sunday’s
incident, the PCSP said today.
Wade is being held at the Porter County Jail.
According to the PCSP, at 3:45 p.m. Sunday the 27-year-old Valparaiso woman
was westbound on U.S. Highway 30 when she looked in her rearview mirror and
saw Wade—her ex-boyfriend but not the child’s biological father—hidden in
the back seat, armed with a knife. “At that time he began to jab her with”
the knife, inflicting a deep laceration to her finger which required several
stitches, the PCSP said. During the altercation, the woman was able to stop
her vehicle in the area of C.R. 475W in Union Township, where Wade crawled
into the front seat, pushed the woman out, and fled the scene with the
child, the PCSP said.
Wade then abandoned the child at the Cherryhill Apartments in Portage, where
the girl was later found and safely reunited with her mother by Portage
Police, the PCSP said.
Meanwhile, after speaking to the woman, the PCSP immediately initiated an
Amber Alert and Wade was subsequently intercepted and taken into custody by
the Indiana State Police on southbound I-65 near West Lafayette, the PCSP
said.
Saturday’s incident began at 10:30 a.m. when the woman arrived home from
work to find Wade inside waiting for her, the VPD said. Wade approached her
with a knife and demanded that she leave with him, then forced her into a
vehicle, which Wade drove to an unspecified location in Indiana Dunes
National Lakeshore, the VPD said. Wade next drove her to Gary and finally to
his mother’s home in Merrillville, where the woman persuaded him to let her
go, the VPD said.
The woman then drove herself to the VPD station and reported the incident at
5:30 p.m. Saturday.
Kidnapping is a Class A felony punishable by a term of 20 to 50 years;
carjacking a Class B felony, punishable by a term of six to 20 years; and
battery with a deadly weapon a Class C felony punishable by a term of two to
eight years.
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