Carlesha Freeland-Gaither

In November 2014, 22-year-old nursing assistant Carlesha Freeland-Gaither was abducted while walking home in Philadelphia. She fought back during the attack and deliberately left behind her phone and glasses, hoping someone would realize she was in danger. A witness saw the abduction, called 911 twice, and provided police with crucial information. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Carlesha Freeland-Gaither. Authorities eventually identified her abductor through DNA evidence linking him to the sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl in Virginia. On November 5, 2014, the FBI located him at a Maryland shopping center and rescued Carlesha, who was injured but alive. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:24Speaker 01

  I'm good, but it's more than 257.

• 1:27Speaker 00

  Oh, it's 557. I'm not sure why I wrote 257 down.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I don't either.

• 1:35Speaker 00

  But thank you for catching me. I appreciate that.

• 1:38Speaker 01

  Like, I know we've done more than that.

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Yeah, I got a little typo going there. All right, buddy, you ready to get into the episode?

• 1:44Speaker 01

  I'm ready.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  22-year-old Carlisha Freeland Gaither was abducted one night in Philadelphia in November 2014. She survived her harrowing ordeal through bravery, intelligence, compassion. Helpful witnesses assisted with the investigation, leading to her rescue three days later. So I think already, you know, this is going to be a different type of episode.

• 2:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:11Speaker 00

  You can tell that right from the get-go. In 2014, Carlesha was working as a nursing assistant in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She had previously lived with her grandmother in Maryland for several years. Carlesha lived with her grandfather in Philadelphia until a couple of months before she was abducted. At that point, she moved in with her boyfriend. Carlesha worked with cancer patients and was pursuing a career in nursing. And we talk about it all the time. You know, I have such a spot in my heart for nurses. My mom was a nurse for 30-plus years.

• 2:53Speaker 00

  My youngest is in her last year of nursing school. So my best friend's wife is a nurse, just a lot of nurses.

• 3:03Speaker 01

  Love nurses.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  And frankly, what they do is amazing.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  It is.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  If you think about it.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  It really, really is.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  My youngest does have some pretty interesting stories.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  I'm sure she does.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  I will, I will give her that. Some funny, some downright gross that, you know, she tends to want to share at the dinner table for some reason.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Well, of course, that's when you do that kind of thing.

• 3:28Speaker 00

  You know, I hate that.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  I know you do.

• 3:30Speaker 00

  I get so upset.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Like it.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  I don't want to think about gross stuff while I'm eating my meals.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  It really bugs you.

• 3:39Speaker 00

  It does. Shortly before 10:00 PM on November 2, 2014, Carlesha was returning home after visiting her godson. She had just gotten off the bus in the Germantown neighborhood and was walking down the sidewalk in the area of 100 West Colter Street. At 9:40 PM, a car passed her and quickly parked, and then a man got out and approached her. Okay. I mean, you got to kind of analyze that situation.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  We have a woman, kind of late at night, right? Walking alone. People do it all the time.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 4:20Speaker 00

  But inherently, there is some danger there.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  For anybody, right? In a city to be walking alone.

• 4:27Speaker 01

  That's why we always say, keep your head on a swivel.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. You always hear about, you know, traveling pairs if you can, but it's not always practical. You can't always do it. But then you have this guy kind of pass by on a car, in a car, not on a car.

• 4:42Speaker 01

  But in a car.

• 4:43Speaker 00

  Because that would be pretty hard to do, surfing on top of a car when nobody else driving.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  It's not impossible.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  It seemed like something you might have tried in your younger days.

• 4:53Speaker 01

  I might have.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  But this guy kind of zooming by and then very quickly pulling over and exiting the car.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  What are you going to think at that point? I mean, at the very least, your, your spidey senses have to elevate.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. Like, something's going, something's about ready to happen.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  And then it's probably not going to be good.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  No.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  That would be my thought. A surveillance camera on Green Street showed a man reaching his hand out to Carlesha and her slowly backing away. She tried to get around him, and then he lunged at her and grabbed her. After that, they disappeared from view. Another camera showed Carlesha being dragged down the 100 block of West Colter Street and shoved into a vehicle. So we just said, right? It's probably not going to be good. Obviously, it is turning out not to have been good.

• 5:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  I don't know what, in what scenario this would play out in a good way. Yeah, is it possible that somebody just needs to pull over quickly and jump out for whatever reason? Maybe, maybe they, they think their tire is going flat or something like that. But when the person starts to come towards you, it's just has to be a really bad feeling.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, scary moment.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Yeah. For her, it had to been, you know, very scary.

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:19Speaker 00

  Now, she did try to fight back against the attacker. And then during the struggle, she intentionally dropped her phone and glasses, believing that if someone spotted those items, they would realize something bad had happened.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  That's a good, good step to take, right? I mean, at least someone can look at that location and say, okay, we know she was here at one point.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  Yes. And it's very smart.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:47Speaker 00

  And I think if, like, we're sitting here, there's no danger to us right here in the studio, and we're able to analyze it and say, oh, yeah, that's, that's very smart. How smart is it when you're in the middle of this life and death potential, potentially, situation? To me, that's off the smart's intelligence.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:11Speaker 00

  To think about that while at the same time trying to fight off your attacker. So, I mean, I give her tons of credit.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yes, for sure.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  For this. Carlesha said in an interview with NBC 10 Philadelphia, a decade later, "You've seen on scary movies or crime movies, but the first thing when a person takes you, they ask you for any items that you have, that you contact people. So I figured maybe if I just leave my phone, since I'm pretty sure it was going to be taken away from me, that somebody knew I was on my way home." She said, "Anybody that knows me knows that I wear glasses, and I wouldn't leave them anywhere. So if somebody walked by, it was evidence. DNA from my glasses and my cell phone, which had my contact." So again, just really smart stuff.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  You know, most people don't leave their glasses laying around because they need them to see.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:15Speaker 00

  Most people hold on to their cell phones with their lives.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure.

• 8:19Speaker 00

  Right? That's kind of a big part of our being anymore.

• 8:25Speaker 01

  It's who we are.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  So I almost view this as kind of like a Hansel and Gretel situation.

• 8:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  Where there's like, is that Hansel and Gretel, where they're leaving the breadcrumbs?

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:38Speaker 00

  I thought it was, but then I was getting confused.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Whether I was thinking about the right story or not.

• 8:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Hansel and Gretel.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. Almost like that, right? I'm leaving behind clues so someone can either help find me or at the very least realize that something's going on here. And you got to get the police involved or whatever.

• 8:59Speaker 01

  It's also in chapter four of my book, so the breadcrumbs.

• 9:02Speaker 00

  As what? A good thing to do? Or a thing that you don't allow people to do when you're out hunting? Because I, which book are we talking about here? The book that helps you stay safe? Or the book for budding serial killers? Because you've written a number of them.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Well, volume two is the one I was speaking of. Volume four is the one you're speaking of.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Okay. Yeah, you've branched out in a number of different directions.

• 9:29Speaker 01

  You know, you can find the whole box collection out there on sale today.

• 9:33Speaker 00

  At a garage sale near you.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  So we get back to this abduction, right?

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  The man overpowered Carlissia and forced her into a gray Ford Taurus. The abductor hit her on the head with a hammer and threatened to kill her if she didn't stop fighting.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  I mean, over the head with a hammer? It's gonna be kinda hard to recover from too many of those blows.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, I know you've been hit with a lot of things over the years. I've never been hit with a hammer, though. That's, you know, I get it. You're fighting, you're fighting, you're fighting. And I think most people know that in this scenario, you can't stop fighting.

• 10:18Speaker 01

  No, you gotta do everything you can to get away.

• 10:22Speaker 00

  But the abductor also knows that as well.

• 10:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:24Speaker 00

  So they're gonna try everything they can to silence you, to keep you from fighting. A man named Dwayne Fletcher was walking on Green Street near Colter when he heard a scream behind him. He ran to the scene just in time to witness a man forcing a woman into a car. He yelled at the man and asked him what he was doing, but stopped when he realized the man was armed with a 12-inch knife.

• 10:52Speaker 01

  That's a big knife.

• 10:53Speaker 00

  It is a big knife. That is either a K-bar? Is a K-bar that big?

• 10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Can they get up to 12 inches in length? Or this is like a crocodile Dundee type knife.

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  That's, that's not a knife. This is a knife.

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  I can't do the Australian accent like you can, but. I mean, there are a lot of different people, people, a lot of different companies who make pretty big knives, right? But there are some that are kind of iconic. You know, when I was a kid, my biggest dream was to have a Rambo knife.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  A Rambo knife?

• 11:32Speaker 00

  Rambo was, was huge, right? Sylvester Stallone. And I actually recently watched a video about that knife. It was made by this like world famous knife maker.

• 11:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Purposely for the movie.

• 11:47Speaker 01

  For the movie.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  And he came up with the idea to have the, the end screw off and have fish, fish hooks and matches and all that stuff in there.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  The compass on the end.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  And so, you know, those exploded in popularity.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  Big time.

• 12:05Speaker 00

  Flea markets were selling them for like 10 bucks. They were knockoffs, right? But apparently, a, an original from this guy goes for big time money.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  Big money, huh?

• 12:18Speaker 00

  But that's, that's what I always wanted. Now, at that age, should I have had a Rambo knife?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 12:24Speaker 00

  No, absolutely not.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if you should even have one now.

• 12:27Speaker 00

  I, I don't know. I'm not the most careful person in the world.

• 12:31Speaker 01

  You are not.

• 12:32Speaker 00

  But needless to say, I, I didn't get one. My parents were pretty protective.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, as they should be.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  About things like that. But I want to get back to this guy, right? He's, I think he's trying to help, right? As a lot of people would, if you think someone is in trouble. And especially if you think a man is abducting a woman.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 12:55Speaker 00

  Who's not gonna wanna step in and intervene?

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Now you have to figure out how to handle this 12-inch knife.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  Well, yeah. When you find out that the person's armed, whether it's a, a big ass 12-inch knife or a gun or whatever, does that change your stance? Cause I think for most people it would.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  I, I wanna help, but I don't wanna die.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  So, you know, I, I gotta figure out what to do. So Fletcher called 911 as he watched the rear passenger window shatter. He thought it was a gunshot, but police later determined that Carlissia used a hammer to break out the window.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Smart.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Smart, badass. I mean, you gotta give it up to her.

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:41Speaker 00

  She is not going easily.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  As you should not.

• 13:47Speaker 00

  No.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I mean, fight, fight.

• 13:49Speaker 00

  And all the experts say that, right? I mean, yeah, can it increase the level of danger? It can, but in a lot of these scenarios, these people mean to do you serious harm.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:05Speaker 00

  So don't make it easy.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 14:08Speaker 00

  Now, again, there have been many instances where people have gone along and they've been let go. So, you know, I'm not giving anybody advice, but I think most people would say, most experts would say, you're better off fighting than getting into a car willingly or, or whatever. According to Six ABC, she also hit the abductor in the head with a hammer, but he was able to subdue her. Dwayne Fletcher also picked up Carlissia's phone and glasses and called 911 again after the vehicle sped off. Unfortunately, the police were too late in showing up.

• 14:49Speaker 00

  So there's a lot of things that, you know, are scary here, but there's also some things I think going in her favor and Carlissia's favor.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 00

  She's fighting like hell.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  She is.

• 15:02Speaker 00

  You know, she's breaking out car windows. She's hitting this guy in the head with a hammer. I don't even know how she got the hammer, but maybe, you know, he was distracted by this witness who he then had to brandish the knife and kinda forgot about the hammer.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:19Speaker 00

  Leading her to get her hands on it. But the other thing is, there's this witness.

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, now there's a witness to the crime.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  Who's able to, you know, pick up her glasses and phone, call 911, all that good stuff.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Has some description of the individual, the vehicle.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  All that, yeah. It's all gonna be good stuff for police. But Fletcher was devastated, telling NBC 10 Philadelphia, I just cried and cried. I feel as though I didn't do enough at the time.

• 15:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, I get that.

• 15:49Speaker 00

  Guilt, man. We talk about guilt so often because it does creep into, you know, a lot of these cases that we talk about. You know, whether it's survivor's guilt, here you have just kind of a, you know, a witness who saw something. Maybe feels like he wasn't able to do enough.

• 16:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:13Speaker 00

  To save her. I get how you would feel that way.

• 16:16Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 16:17Speaker 00

  Also, I'm not sure this guy was armed, so is he going to take on this guy with the 12-inch knife? I, I don't know what your odds are gonna be.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  Unless you have a lot of confidence in yourself and you've been through some training on how to do hand-to-hand combat and get that knife away from him without hurting yourself. I think you're probably gonna step away.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, if you're a special operations badass, then yeah, maybe you jump in and try to disarm this guy. But if you're, you know, Joe Dad from down the street who works a nine-to-five job and wears a tie.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:55Speaker 00

  It might be a little tougher.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, you're no Delta operator.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, most people aren't Jason Statham in the movie.

• 17:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 17:04Speaker 00

  Where they can just jump in and grab the knife and twist the guy around and we all want to be that.

• 17:12Speaker 01

  So badly.

• 17:13Speaker 00

  We're just not.

• 17:14Speaker 01

  So badly.

• 17:15Speaker 00

  Most of us. Carlissia's abductor crossed into Maryland. At some point, he bound her wrists and placed her in the trunk of the vehicle. She told NBC 10 Philadelphia that during her ordeal, she thought about the 2013 movie, The Call, in which a 911 operator helped save a girl who was abducted. She said, I was trying to figure out what the other young lady did to get out. I felt more safe in the trunk than I did outside the truck.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  And I think that, that call, is that the one with?

• 17:53Speaker 01

  What's her name?

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Barry?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Halle Berry?

• 17:56Speaker 00

  Halle Berry?

• 17:58Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 17:59Speaker 00

  I think that might be the one where she plays the 911 operator.

• 18:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you might be right.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  There's a couple of movies like that, so I'm not sure. What was throwing me was I didn't think that movie was that old, but time flies, so. But again, I can't say enough about how intelligent this woman is.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  Oh, she's, she is definitely in survival. Survival?

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Or survival.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  You actually said it correct.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Survival mode.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it would be easy to just crawl up in a ball and, and just sob.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  Give up.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  And give up.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:37Speaker 00

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• 20:07Speaker 00

  In Aberdeen, Maryland, Carlissia gave the abductor her bank card and her PIN, which he used as an ATM. She hoped investigators would notice the transaction and they did.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, smart. I mean, you could give them a fake PIN, but why? You know, go ahead and give the PIN and now they have a way to track.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Where you were at last.

• 20:30Speaker 00

  I'm right with you because if you're in that scenario, why would you not want the transaction to go through?

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:38Speaker 00

  Because you know, police are going to be monitoring your, your bank accounts. Then they're going to be able to get the footage from that ATM and, and all of that. Plus, what do you care about the money at this point?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, you don't and.

• 20:52Speaker 00

  You're fighting for your life.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  And you hope maybe down the road, if they need more money, they'll use it again. And that will give the police another update. If you give the wrong PIN, eventually the machine eats it and then there's no card to use again.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  Well, that's true. Now, some people might make the argument that if you give them the, the PIN, they have everything they want. Now, what do they need you for?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Depends why, why they grabbed you in the first place, I guess.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  So it's, you know, there, there's some things to think about. Police released the surveillance footage of the abduction as well as photos of the suspect at the ATM and a nearby gas station. So they, they, you know, they got quite a bit.

• 21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:31Speaker 00

  Luckily, there was some surveillance around the area where she was abducted. We know there's going to be surveillance at the ATM, right? There's a camera there.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  But then, once you figure out where the ATM is, then you're going to scour for surveillance at surrounding businesses. And it sounds like they were able to find some at a nearby gas station. The ATM images were captured at 6:01 AM on November 3rd. The gas station footage was time stamped 6:04 AM. So it was just a mere minutes after the ATM bank card was used.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Carlissia's abductor continued driving south, periodically throwing garbage from the car in Haverde Grace, Maryland. He threw out a bag that contained a receipt from an Acme supermarket in Philadelphia and a bag of potato chips.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  Well, that's just wasting food.

• 22:37Speaker 00

  Well, I'm assuming he had already eaten the potato chips.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  Probably did.

• 22:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't think he's throwing out like unopened bags, but uh, yeah, this Haverde Grace, uh, I said that completely wrong and, and a pretty recent episode and got corrected. So hopefully this time I've, I've got it right.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  You nailed it.

• 22:58Speaker 00

  I get corrected a lot, but you know, a lot of times the next episode where that may pop up could be years away.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  And so the chances of me remembering it, you know, are not great, but this was pretty recent. So hopefully I got it right. A woman found the trash in her driveway. Now she didn't think much about it at first, but later called the police after talking about the abduction with a friend. Because by this point, right, Carlissia's case had made headlines around the country.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, everybody's hearing about it.

• 23:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. But that's still kind of amazing to me. You know, if you walked outside and you found some trash in your driveway, I don't know that my first thought would go to, well, what unsolved cases or current cases are happening, but uh.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  I think, uh, you pick it up and just throw it in the trash.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  A lot of people would, a lot of people would. Using the time and date on the receipt, police found footage of the suspect on the supermarket's surveillance camera. He purchased the same chips that were discarded along with the receipt. So, I mean, it's good police work.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  It is.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  But it's also aided by unbelievable witnesses and people coming forward.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  I mean, were you a bad scenario, but where you want things to go just the right way? Things are going just the right way to help assist the police.

• 24:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, because you know, police are usually pretty good at what they do, but they still need help.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  They do.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  Right? They need tips and he leads all of that. And they are getting some when releasing surveillance footage and images on November 4th. Authorities said they didn't know who the suspect was and were seeking the public's help in identifying. Yeah. Authorities in Charles City County, Virginia, recognized the man as the suspect in the abduction and sexual assault of a 16-year-old girl in October 2014. DNA evidence from that case was run through a national database. And on October 28th, authorities identified the perpetrator as 37-year-old Delvin Barnes.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  The 16-year-old victim also identified Barnes from a photo lineup of mug shots.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 25:32Speaker 00

  So, I mean, again, they're getting a lot of help. That's important. This time help is coming from authorities in another jurisdiction, but it leads them to identify this perpetrator. Surveillance footage had also captured the name of a dealership on Barnes's car. Authorities contacted the dealership and learned that a GPS tracker had been installed when Barnes purchased the car and security, in case he didn't make the payments. So they wanted this security.

• 26:09Speaker 01

  That's a big plus.

• 26:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I don't know if people all, always know that. I think I've heard of other stories before where GPS trackers like this have been installed, but it's not something that is disclosed.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  Rental car businesses do that.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  You know?

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Now, a rental car I could understand, but you know, when you're buying a car, I get it, you still owe money on it, but uh, I would think they'd at least have to tell you, but maybe they don't.

• 26:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I just know I always disable any on my vehicles.

• 26:44Speaker 00

  Well, I know you have, you know, some pretty fancy, uh, equipment to get around, you know, spying, uh, GPS. I don't know why people are always wanting, or you think they are trying to, uh, bug you, track you.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  I don't know, but I go through a lot of aluminum foil.

• 27:08Speaker 00

  Yes, you do.

• 27:11Speaker 00

  As time passed, Carlissia's friends and family worried that they would never see her again. Now, reflecting on her ordeal years later, Carlissia described how she tried to protect herself by staying calm, listening and going along with what Barnes wanted. She told NBC 10 Philadelphia, I kind of just tried to go along with everything. I thought that would probably be best. I thought fighting would turn out to be the worst thing that could happen because again, I didn't know the person or who I was dealing with. So talking was great. He told me stories about other people, which I later found out there were other victims. And he talked about the next, I guess, thing we were going to do

• 27:57Speaker 00

  and how we were going to escape. So I just got done talking a lot about how brave she was, how she fought, and how it can be kind of a double edged sword. I think at a certain point, she did realize she wasn't getting away. So she had to change up her tactic and, you know, try to be a little more friendly, go along with things a little bit. And, and I think that's smart in and of itself as well. Right? You got to read the situation.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 28:27Speaker 00

  At first, you're trying to get away. She doesn't. She's subdued. She's captured. She's probably starting to realize she's not going to be able to get away. So then she changes up her tactic.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  And that's a smart individual, right?

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, I really do. I do think that. She learned Barnes was trying to get to Virginia to visit his daughter. She said, I know he constantly talked about his daughter. And there were times when he would take out his phone to listen to voicemails of his daughter talking. So I thought maybe we could go with that topic and hopefully it would touch his heart. And he'd maybe reconsider things he was doing.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  I mean, that's just using good knowledge, you know, what you just learned about him.

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  And using it for your, uh, benefit.

• 29:17Speaker 00

  Well, I think, yeah, go back to what she said, right? She started listening and really kind of taking it all in. And this reminds me a little bit of, you know, the scenario where someone is abducted and whether it's the parents or it's law enforcement, oftentimes it's the parents. But you know, one of the key things they say is to try to humanize.

• 29:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:42Speaker 00

  The person, right? They want the abductor to see their victim as human because that may make it tougher for them to harm them.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  I mean, this guy's in love with his daughter, obviously. So if you can make him relate to you in that same way.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Maybe you got a better chance.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Maybe you got a better chance, yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. She said his love for his daughter, humanized him despite his actions. She said, I know some people might get upset when I say this. I don't believe anyone is evil. I don't. I believe people go through trauma in their lives and some people just do bad things because that's all they know.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  So I was really sad for him and just hope that maybe hearing his daughter's voice and talking about it, maybe it might change him to want to do better.

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Is it weird that she's compassionate towards him?

• 30:32Speaker 00

  No, I, I don't think so. Um, I think she is looking at it logically, you know, because being compassionate is good for her.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  I, I think she's being strategic.

• 30:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  More than anything else. Carlissia recounted how along the way Barnes stopped outside a Chinese restaurant, Anna McDonald's, where she tried to get help in a discreet way. She said, really just staring at people or trying to get their eyes to, to look. I didn't want to say anything or do anything crazy because he was holding me, so I didn't really know what to do. I'm pretty sure I could have ran or screamed or yelled, but I just didn't know. I was hoping that somebody would notice me, but then again, I didn't see TV, so I didn't know what was going on, on the other side.

• 31:29Speaker 01

  You know, you know, and she says this here, and how many times have you, uh, been out and seen somebody look at you and you wonder?

• 31:37Speaker 00

  What that look means? Yeah.

• 31:39Speaker 01

  Are they needing help? Are they just staring at me for whatever reason?

• 31:44Speaker 00

  I think there's a lot of scenarios like that. Not, not that someone's in trouble, but you know, you see something and you're like, you just have this feeling like something's not right, but then again, what do you do? Well, I mean, do you call the police every time you have a weird feeling? Do you go over and you confront the person? No, probably not. Most people don't.

• 32:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. My luck, I'd go over there and she'd be like, I got a glass eye.

• 32:13Speaker 00

  And no, and no, I was not looking.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  I was not looking at you.

• 32:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. I just, again, it's kind of like the calling the, the police thing when you hear a noise.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  Some people might, but a lot of people wouldn't. On November 5th, 2014, authorities located the four doors in a shopping center parking lot in Jessup, Maryland. Plastic was covering the shattered window, giving agents a clear view of a man and woman sitting in the car.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 32:43Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, the shattered window might be a clue as well.

• 32:47Speaker 01

  Sure. We know she did that with a hammer.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Cause the witness would have told, you know, authorities that FBI agents surrounded the vehicle. Barnes jumped into the driver's seat to try to escape, but authorities blocked him in with their vehicles and Carlissia was rescued. Now she was injured. She was traumatized, but she was alive.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:09Speaker 00

  She was taken to the hospital for treatment and soon released to her family. In a press conference, Detective Jim Sloan said about Carlissia, she's an intelligent girl. This is one of the more memorable cases. It feels good to help out and have a good ending.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Oh, I mean, it's a, a rare thing to hear sometimes.

• 33:30Speaker 00

  Well, and that's why I said in the beginning, right? This is gonna be a little bit of a different kind of episode.

• 33:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Different outcome.

• 33:37Speaker 00

  It's very rare that we're not talking about at least one murder.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 33:42Speaker 00

  And, uh,

• 33:44Speaker 00

  it's nice when people get away, but a lot of crime stories don't end like that, unfortunately. Sloan also said that witness Dwayne Fletcher's quick actions likely saved Carlissia's life. He witnessed it. He watched. He called the police twice. If it wasn't for him, I don't think we'd have the same outcome. This man is a hero.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely. It, it, you know, he has, he had a lot to do with it.

• 34:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would call him a hero. I also think she's an absolute hero as well.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  Superstar.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  For how she handled herself and, and all of that. Sloan said Fletcher deserved the $47,000 reward that was being offered for information.

• 34:31Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 34:32Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't understand why he wouldn't get that. And heck, if you were, you know, if it was your daughter, you'd pay the guy yourself if you had to get your daughter back.

• 34:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  That amount.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  You know, we're not going to be, uh,

• 34:47Speaker 00

  Well, you might try to negotiate because that's just how you are, but.

• 34:51Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not going to be like that guy. What's that? A super wealthy guy that allowed his grandson ear to be cut off?

• 34:58Speaker 00

  Allowed his grandson's ear. Is this real life or a movie?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  No, this is real life. This is the, uh, he was the richest man in the world at one point. Uh, own all the oil.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Rockefeller?

• 35:10Speaker 01

  No, before Rockefeller.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Getty?

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Getty. Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  I, I don't think I know that.

• 35:14Speaker 01

  Yeah. His grandson got kidnapped over in, uh, Italy, I think.

• 35:19Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  And he allowed his, he, he thought his grandson was setting it up and just didn't want to pay the money. And then eventually he paid the money after his grandson's ear got cut off, but he only, he only paid up what was tax deductible.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  And you want to know how rich people get rich?

• 35:38Speaker 01

  So there's that.

• 35:40Speaker 00

  Fletcher told NBC 10 Philadelphia, the money would help, but the best reward was knowing Carlissia was home and safe. And who wouldn't want $47,000?

• 35:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  I mean, nobody's going to turn down $47,000, but it would also be amazing to know that you in a, in at least some way helped save someone's life.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:05Speaker 00

  That has to be an amazing feel.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Philadelphia police announced they were continuing to track Barnes's movements in the hours and days before the abduction. They believed he was involved in a robbery the week prior.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  I'm not shocked.

• 36:22Speaker 00

  No. I mean, we, we, we said, right? Attempted abduction of another girl. Now they think he was involved in a robbery. It is a little strange that they're saying they were tracking his movements, but yet he was able to abduct this woman.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Like maybe they weren't tracking them that well.

• 36:44Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know how, I don't know that we were talking, they were talking about around the clock surveillance. The FBI had taken over the kidnapping investigation by this point. Barnes was also charged with attempted capital murder, abduction, forcible rape, malicious wounding and malicious wounding using a chemical in the Virginia case.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 37:11Speaker 00

  Malicious wounding I've heard of. I, I've never heard of it with the added element of using a, a chemical. I don't think I've ever heard that before.

• 37:22Speaker 01

  He's got a lot of charges right now.

• 37:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, he does. Investigators came out and said that there were some similarities between the kidnappings of the 16 year old girl and Carlissia Freeland Gaither. Both victims were held for a few days and they didn't have any connection to Delvin Barnes. In the Virginia case, the teen was sexually abused. The teen's family reported her missing on October 1st, 2014. The victim told police, she was hit on the head with a shovel and put into the trunk of a car. She was taken to the home of Barnes's parents in Charles City County where she was raped. Barnes showed her pictures of other

• 38:07Speaker 00

  girls. He claimed he abducted.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  Wow. What a sicko, man.

• 38:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, this is nasty, vile stuff. I agree with you. He's a sick individual. You know, bad enough to, you know, incapacitate this young girl, throw her in the trunk, sexually assault her, but then you're going to show her pictures of other girls and say, hey, look, here are the other girls and women I've abducted.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Let me share some of my trophies with you here.

• 38:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Very, very strange. Two days later, he brought her into the backyard. She was naked and he poured bleach and gasoline on her, burned her clothing and dug a hole. He told the girl, he was going to kill her and asked her, how do you want to die? I mean, you want to talk about scary.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  Real scary.

• 39:02Speaker 00

  This is a 16 year old girl who's been abducted, sexually abused, raped. Now she is naked and covered in chemicals and gasoline, and he's threatening to set her on fire and bury her in this hole. I, I, I can't even imagine what would go through a person's mind when they're in that situation.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  But when he was briefly distracted, the victim fled into the woods. She ran about two miles down a dark road to a local business. Employees brought her inside and helped her. She was naked, covered in blood and suffered from third degree burns from the bleach and gasoline.

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Man, that is rough. I don't even know how you go from where she was at, running, you know, running away with all that going on. But that's in her mind, she knew she had to get out of there, right? She only had a few seconds, so she took off.

• 40:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know how much of that is adrenaline.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  Thinking a lot of it is.

• 40:08Speaker 00

  I think probably most of it is fear, all kinds of different emotions, right? Changes, maybe some things you're able to do that maybe you wouldn't be able to do without that. But you know, self-preservation is a big motivator.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  It is.

• 40:26Speaker 00

  And I'm with you. I think she knew, not just worried about it, not a maybe. I think she knew she was about ready to die. And so, again, we talk about taking a chance. This was the perfect opportunity.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:45Speaker 00

  And it worked.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  I mean, if you stay, you're right, you're gonna die, so.

• 40:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, or if you try to escape and you get caught, you're probably still gonna suffer the same thing.

• 40:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're back to where you were anyway.

• 40:57Speaker 00

  And I don't know if that's what she was thinking, but amazing that she got away. WBPT spoke with the mother of the Virginia victim. She said about Delvin Barnes, I just want to kill him. I just want to kill him. And I don't know how many people in a situation like this, where their 16-year-old was abducted, violated, almost killed, wouldn't have that same thought. And even the people that said they don't feel that way, I feel like they might be lying.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 41:34Speaker 00

  I get it, you're not a killer, but you want to see that person dead for what they did.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:40Speaker 00

  And I don't fault anybody for that. Now, I don't, you know, say that you should go out and take justice into your own hands. I don't believe in that, but to not at least have the thought? I think people might be dishonest if they said that. They never had it.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  In a situation like this.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  I know I would.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, I would as well. I'm having it right now and this person's not even a part of my family.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 42:08Speaker 00

  I'm so upset with this guy.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, how can you do something like this?

• 42:12Speaker 00

  You know, it's like you say, if I could just get in a room with this person for 10, 15 minutes.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:19Speaker 00

  Who knows what would happen?

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Well, we think we know what would happen.

• 42:23Speaker 00

  I know what would happen with you, because you might speak softly, but you don't want to see the animal come out in Gibby. I'm telling you right now.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Well, or you.

• 42:35Speaker 00

  I won't, well, mine comes out a lot.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  You come out more, yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 00

  It's even scarier, though, when you have a person who's very level.

• 42:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  Most of, almost all the time, I've probably seen the animal come out maybe once or twice.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:50Speaker 00

  But those were scary. Those are scary moments.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Keep it in, yeah.

• 42:54Speaker 00

  Very scary moments. Oh my gosh, so you have this mother, I understand what she's saying. Now, she wasn't identified by WBBT, but she said about her daughter, after all that beating, raping, choking, all of that, she got away? And I'm, it almost gives you chills.

• 43:18Speaker 01

  It does.

• 43:19Speaker 00

  To think about anybody, let alone a 16-year-old girl, who is in this situation, but musters up the, whatever you want to call it, to get away.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  I mean, she goes through all that, right? All that, then she has to deal with the burns.

• 43:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Right? Because I'm sure third degree burns, that's gonna be difficult.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  They're not good. And her mother actually said, the burns on her skin, my daughter didn't look like herself. It was devastating to watch.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Had to be, had to be.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  She also had a message for Delvin Barnes. She said, God bless him. You did not succeed, and I hope your ass will fry in hell.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  As everybody probably feels the same way.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, she sounds a little bit about like Samuel L. Jackson.

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  And I hope you burn in hell.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  You burn in hell.

• 44:12Speaker 00

  In the days following the abduction, news outlets reported on Barnes's extensive criminal history. And he had a criminal record that ranged from traffic infractions, to the use of a firearm and robbery, to aggravated assault and false imprisonment.

• 44:30Speaker 01

  Oh, shocker there.

• 44:32Speaker 00

  It's not a shocker. Now, should it be a shocker that the guy is out walking the streets? It should be, but it's not.

• 44:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's disturbing.

• 44:44Speaker 00

  I do, I start to worry about our criminal justice system sometimes, in that it just doesn't seem to have, like, much in the way of teeth. Where people just don't get much.

• 44:59Speaker 01

  I understand, reform is important, you know, you want to reform, get these people back on track. And I think in some cases, it works well. But sometimes I think, I know, it doesn't work.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, but when we do a case and you talk about somebody who's got, you know, a rap sheet that's a mile long.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:20Speaker 00

  At what point did someone step in and say, we're going to stop giving this guy a slap on the wrist?

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it's not working.

• 45:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, if anything, a lot of times what you see is it just getting progressively worse.

• 45:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, escalates up.

• 45:38Speaker 00

  On November 28th, 2005, Barnes's estranged wife returned to her home around 9:45 PM. She had a protective order against Barnes due to past abuse. When she went to bed around 10:15, Barnes jumped out of her bedroom closet and tried to talk to her. She told him to leave, or she would call the police, but he refused. As she went to call 911, he jumped on top of her, grabbed her face, and began digging his nails into her skin.

• 46:10Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 46:11Speaker 00

  He allegedly hit her in the face, choked her, and threatened to kill her. He allegedly said he'd only stop beating her if she took off her clothes. She told police she removed her clothes, and Barnes forced her to have sex three times throughout the night, forced her to perform oral sex, and threatened her with several objects. In the morning, she begged him to let her use the phone to call her parents. As she spoke to her mother, she was able to indicate she was in trouble, and asked her mother to call 911.

• 46:48Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know how she did that, if it was just, you know, straight to the point, but I think all parents and kids should have some type of word, you know, or some phrase that you say this, you know that you need to do something on your end because your kid is in trouble.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  I was thinking the exact same thing.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:09Speaker 00

  I don't have that set up with my family, but I can tell you right now, after this episode, we're going to.

• 47:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:15Speaker 00

  Because you can imagine a time where someone, for whatever reason, is able to make a call, but there's someone right with them that is not going to allow them to say exactly what they want to say.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  And having a kind of an innocuous phrase that they don't use ever, but if they did, it would mean, hey, I'm in trouble, that's very smart.

• 47:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think you just have to figure out what wouldn't sound strange to the person overhearing your call.

• 47:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:51Speaker 01

  That, but would still trigger the parent.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  And it's got to be something that you can work in normally in a conversation.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:00Speaker 00

  Maybe a little bit easier said than done, but I think it's doable.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Well, absolutely.

• 48:04Speaker 00

  For every family.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:06Speaker 00

  A short time later, the woman's mother and father walked into her home. Barnes became enraged and beat her again. The victim's father ran into the room with a bat and tried to get Barnes off his daughter. Barnes then allegedly began to beat the victim's mother, ran to the kitchen and grabbed a knife. The woman and her parents ran to a neighbor's house to call nine one one and Barnes fled the scene. He was arrested the next day and you know, great on these parents.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:38Speaker 00

  Right. They, they understood, hey, uh, my daughter's in trouble. Mom and dad go over, dad's got a bat. And I'm not sure happens, I'm not sure exactly how this altercation went down, but

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  It's strange to me that he had a bat, but this guy was kind of able to start beating on the victim's mother and run into the kitchen to, to grab a knife and ultimately get away.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. My best little, uh, weapon is, uh, my dad gave it to me. He, he had somebody make them, make them one of these, one of these tire checkers, semi tire truck checkers.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  Oh, you thump it against the tire.

• 49:19Speaker 01

  It's just melted lead wrapped with leather.

• 49:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Oh, that's the great, a great little hand.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  I've heard a number of different terms for those.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  They might be illegal in some places. You might want to check the legality of those.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  It's not legal.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  I didn't think it was.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  I still have it and.

• 49:37Speaker 00

  Cause they are very, very dangerous.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  You can really hurt somebody, but if you're in a scenario where you had to use it, I, I don't know that people would care about the legality at that point. If it's, if you're trying to use it to save your life, that we'll deal with that part down the road. That's kind of the way I looked at it.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  I didn't know I needed to find a legal advice, a legal piece of, uh, equipment to use to save my life. I just would.

• 50:05Speaker 00

  I just grabbed the first thing I could find.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  In 2006, Barnes was found guilty of aggravated assault, criminal trespassing, false imprisonment, simple assault, reckless endangerment and other offenses.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 50:21Speaker 00

  But he was acquitted of rape, unlawful restraint, burglary, and attempted involuntary deviant sexual intercourse.

• 50:32Speaker 01

  Okay. So I'm guessing they felt like they couldn't run with those. So they went with the other charges?

• 50:40Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, there wasn't a lot there about why, but I mean, the ones he was found guilty of, they're very serious, right? Aggravated assault, false imprisonment, um, things like that. But it's just strange that he was acquitted of the rape, unlawful restraint. How is unlawful restraint that much different than false imprisonment? And I don't even know what attempted involuntary deviant sexual intercourse is. To me, that sounds like rape.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Very, very similar. I don't know.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  But this is the kind of stuff that, you know, gets people really pissed off.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  It does. I get it prosecutors, they got to work with what they, they have and what they think they can, you know, get a guilty plea on and, and maybe sometimes you drop certain things to make sure the, the water is not muddy for the jury. And you know, it's above my head, but.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  This is when I think about that movie with Gerard, Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Oh, Law Abiding Citizen.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:50Speaker 00

  Great movie.

• 51:51Speaker 01

  Cause I'm like, I get why he did what he did.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, again, there you're talking about, you know, what's a father willing to do?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. How far is he willing to go? He went pretty far.

• 52:02Speaker 00

  He went pretty far. He's not the good guy in the movie, but um, yeah, he went way too far. Barnes's uncle Lamar told NBC 10 Philadelphia that Delvin's father is a minister and he was raised by good parents, but he wasn't necessarily surprised by the allegation.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Funny when you hear something like that.

• 52:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, to have your uncle say, hey, he was raised right. But you know what? I'm not all that surprised by the allegations. These are shocking allegations to most family members. So that tells you a lot about, uh, you know, this, this guy and his record and what people thought about him.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:49Speaker 00

  Barnes said, some men grew up having problems with women, so they take it out on women. Apparently he's one of them. And this is the uncle, Lamar, right? Saying this, on September 10th, 2015, Delvin Barnes pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges. In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed not to charge him for the case involving the 16 year old girl in Virginia. At his arraignment per A and E, Barnes told the judge that kidnapping Carlissia was an act of desperation and referred to it as a robbery that quote, turned into other things.

• 53:33Speaker 01

  Really? Like kidnapping and?

• 53:36Speaker 00

  Yeah. Turned into other things is, uh, extremely euphemistic.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  For what this guy did to her. He said he grabbed the wrong person and that he needed money to visit his daughter before he turned himself in for the sexual assault in Virginia. And I think he did grab the wrong person, not that you should be grabbing anyone.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  But you know, let's face it, this woman, she fought like hell.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, she did. Tough.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  And she was smart. She did some things that helped her not only get away, but helped authorities, you know, get this guy.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  On June 30th, 2016, Delvin Barnes was sentenced to 35 years in prison. He is scheduled to be released in June 2044. So, you know, 35 years in prison is, uh, it's not nothing.

• 54:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:35Speaker 00

  It's a, it's a pretty hefty price to pay.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  I hope they keep him there for the full term.

• 54:44Speaker 00

  You know, you, yes. Could he get out earlier? Possibly. You know, I'm sure he may come up for parole, but, um, I mean, when you think about it, we've done cases in other countries where people have killed more than one person.

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  And gotten way less. So, you know, by that logic, it's a, it's a pretty hefty sentence. In February 2024, Carlissia sat down with NBC 10 Philadelphia for her first ever interview where she described how she survived her harrowing ordeal. And we've used a lot of that, right? As a reference point, especially early in the episode.

• 55:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:32Speaker 00

  She also credited witness Dwayne Fletcher, saying, if it wasn't for him, I don't think I would be here today. And she might be right. You know, what this guy did, you know, was amazing. They called him a hero. I agree with that.

• 55:48Speaker 01

  I think it's a combination of what he did and what she did.

• 55:50Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. I, I think she might be selling herself short.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  I get it. She wants to give the praise to him.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 55:56Speaker 00

  I give a lot to her.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  Because what she did was amazing. She said she was still dealing with the mental and emotional impact of the abduction. She said, I still get scared at times, but I really try to stay strong because I now have a son and I try to stay strong for him. Also, I try to, if I can, talk to other people and reach out and let them know to be more aware of their surroundings. Always have someone you're with, walking with, let somebody know where you're at.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  I mean, she's absolutely right.

• 56:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:31Speaker 01

  She's lived it. So she actually can speak about it.

• 56:35Speaker 00

  And we talked about it in the, earlier in the episode. You can't always be with somebody, right? If you're just getting off of work or something like that, yeah, you could be alone.

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Good.

• 56:45Speaker 00

  But where you can, there is obviously safety in numbers. To me, the, the bigger thing is being aware of your surroundings. It's why we always talk about keeping your head on a swivel.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:59Speaker 00

  You know, don't have your face kind of buried in your iPhone when you're walking in a, a parking lot at night.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  Pay attention.

• 57:07Speaker 00

  Yeah. Look around, you know, use your iPhone when you get home or, you know.

• 57:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  When you're on, safe on the couch, but you know, I, there's some things that are unavoidable, but there's some things that, you know, may not happen if you're paying attention and you steer clear of an individual.

• 57:27Speaker 01

  Pay attention, walk with purpose and you know, uh, get where you need to be without hesitation.

• 57:33Speaker 00

  Yeah. But I also get the fact that, you know, she's still dealing with the mental and the emotional part of it. It's, it's going to be tough to work through.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:43Speaker 00

  And get over. I don't know if you ever get over it, but you learn to, to deal with it maybe. After the abduction, Carlissia took time off from work, but eventually returned, which gave her a sense of normalcy as she processed her trauma. She received counseling and leaned on her family, friends and coworkers for support, which I think is invaluable.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  It is.

• 58:07Speaker 00

  Right. You're going to need some therapy after going through something like this, but you're also going to need a very strong support system, friends, family, colleagues. She said, it was nice to see your coworkers and colleagues and everybody who you thought you may not see again, be there to support you. It was really nice. And I really just realized how much of a family we are and I love them.

• 58:32Speaker 01

  Well, like, and I think you kind of mentioned it, but it's important to have that, that feeling that you got people around you, your safety, uh, network.

• 58:41Speaker 00

  People got your back, whatever you want to call it. She also said that despite everything, she had forgiven Barnes. She said, I don't think what he did was right, and I do think there's consequences that should be there for him. But I do forgive him and think everybody has the second chance to become a better person.

• 58:59Speaker 01

  Good for her. I don't know if I could do that.

• 59:02Speaker 00

  Yeah. I don't know if I'd have the same outlook on it, but.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  But that's a very strong person right there that can do that.

• 59:08Speaker 00

  I think it's a healthy way to look at it.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  It is.

• 59:11Speaker 00

  I, I know not all of us, you and I don't think we would be that person who's able to forgive, uh, the way some people can. But she said, for me to keep on living and moving forward, I had to let part of that go. And part of that is forgiving.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:30Speaker 00

  And I, I would think that's probably true.

• 59:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is, but.

• 59:34Speaker 00

  I think you're better off if you can do it. I just don't think everybody's able to do it.

• 59:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think if you can get to that point where you can forgive, then at that point, it's probably not going to keep you up every night.

• 59:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:46Speaker 01

  As much.

• 59:46Speaker 00

  And you're going to be able to move forward easier and, and, you know, not dwell on it as much maybe. But you know, it's just a really different case for us, you know, as we wrap this one up. A couple of amazing people in the story, Carlissia for one.

• 1:00:04Speaker 00

  All the things that, that she did, how intelligent she was, how much of a fighter she was. You know, this witness, Dwayne Fletcher, uh, he's often credited with, uh, helping save her life and, and catch this killer. But I also go back to the 16 year old victim and how amazing she was after everything she went through to be able to escape and run, uh, several miles to get to help.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Speaker 00

  I mean, that's, uh.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Tough, tough, uh, young girl right there.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. With third degree chemical burns and she's able to, to do that at 16 years old. That gives me goosebumps.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  But that's it for our episode on Carlissia Freeland Gaither.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  What else you got?

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  That's, that's it for this Thursday.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Okay. We love y'all.

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  We do.

• 1:01:04Speaker 00

  We appreciate everything you do for us and we'll talk to you next week.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  See ya.

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  Bye.