The bloody woman had been beaten so badly while held captive that she can’t remember how she even got that way. Residents “in a small neighborhood in Gig Harbor, Washington, were shocked to find a woman begging for help, claiming she’d been kidnapped.” Robin Marcello filled in local reporters about what she and her husband knew.
Escaped captive begging for help
When Robin Marcello talked to local reporters about the captive who approached her husband on November 18, she failed to mention his name. He’s the one who first encountered the 27-year-old woman “last Saturday morning, wandering near their driveway.” They don’t like strangers strolling around their neck of the woods.
“He yelled at her and she turned around and when she turned around, he saw that she obviously had been assaulted and was covered, pretty much covered in blood.” That’s a different story.
Robin helped her husband get the woman inside their home while they called police. They administered some basic first aid while coaxing the story out from the escaped captive.
A suspect is dead after a woman who said she was held against her will for “multiple days” at a Gig Harbor home escaped. https://t.co/Pp9E1VUz3U
— KIRO 7 (@KIRO7Seattle) November 21, 2023
“It was obvious she was bleeding from her head and her ear and I couldn’t really tell all where she’d been hit, but when I tried to hold her and move her because she started to slump forward, it was hurting her to hold her arms, to hold her,” Marcello relates.
When police arrived, the victim related that “she had been held captive for several days.” Police records indicate she told them “the man threatened to beat her with a wooden chair leg if she attempted to escape.”
From her current condition, it appears he had already done that. Repeatedly. She wasn’t fully coherent at the time.
No trial or prison
The best news is that the captive survived the encounter. It’s certain that full recovery will be a long hard road. As soon as she made it out the door, her assailant knew the jig was up.
It didn’t take long for the Gig Harbor Police to follow the victim’s directions to the house she was imprisoned in. When they got there, they were expecting trouble, maybe even a shootout. Instead, things were way too quiet.
According to the statement they released on social media, the GHP relate “a man was found dead inside from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.” He saved the taxpayers the expense of a trial and he wasn’t about to be treated by his cellmate like his captive victim in prison.
NEW: A 27-year-old woman escapes a Gig Harbor home after being held hostage for several days, captor found dead inside. https://t.co/hPgq9hHrag
— Hannah Knowles (@HannahknowlesTV) November 21, 2023
That’s why 66-year-old David Ruffier took the easy way out. He hadn’t been on police radar ahead of time and doesn’t seem to be getting regular psych counseling either. All police know for sure is he may have been a “borderline hoarder.”
Police are especially clueless because the captive suffered some heavy brain injuries. “It’s tough because the victim in this case really doesn’t have a lot of recollection, she doesn’t even recall where she met the man or how long she had been at this location.”
Meanwhile, Mrs. Marcello is having a hard time coping with the shock of a neighbor holding people captive. “It kind of shakes you that you didn’t know that was going on, you didn’t know that person was capable of that and we’re just here going about our lives.“
