While Samantha seemed excited about the prospect of the relationship, her mother says there were already problems. The second young man had another girlfriend, and Samantha told her mother that the other woman was so angry that Samantha was intruding on the relationship that there had been some sort of confrontation between the two women.
"Samantha told me they jumped her," says Tinder, who didn't see any injuries on her daughter and says Samantha was reluctant to provide any details of the alleged assault, which she believes occurred Monday morning or early afternoon.
It was that allegedly tense dynamic, Taylor says, that prompted his multiple calls to Samantha on Monday, the night she disappeared.
"I heard [the girlfriend] saying she wanted to 'beat her *advertiser censored*,'" Taylor recalls, claiming that the second man told his angry girlfriend "he'd help."
Taylor says he also overheard the couple badmouthing Samantha for switching her affections from the first man to the second man, calling Samantha a "tramp." Although he didn't know Samantha well, Taylor says he was so concerned that the young woman was headed into an ambush that he decided to warn her.
He asked the first young man for Samantha's number, and says he sent a text message to the cell phone number the man provided. (Those texts were received by Tinder, who had the phone at work, and didn't respond.) Taylor says he next tried the home number. Samantha answered.
"I just told her, 'Stay away from [the second man],'" Taylor recalls, warning her of the potential threat and noting now that the second man has a criminal history including a conviction for breaking and entering with intent to commit assault and battery, a charge that has resulted in a present day probation violation for which he is currently wanted. The Hook is not revealing the identities of the first or second man or the other girlfriend because none have been named suspects in the Clarke case and the Hook has been unable to reach any of them. According to the second man's mother, whom the Hook did reach, he does not possess a phone, and his whereabouts are unknown.
