Moncton woman found safe after alleged abduction
Man faces charges in connection to Donna O'Rielly's disappearance
JAMES FOSTER
Moncton Times & Transcript
Donna O'Rielly, who disappeared without a trace almost a month ago, should be back with her family this morning after a dramatic end to her disappearance.
Originally from Newfoundland, O'Rielly went missing after she left work at a Moncton Mall Feb. 26.
Despite police efforts and impassioned pleas from her family for help to locate her, there was no sign of her until Wednesday when she was picked up on the side of the road by a delivery driver having apparently escaped from a basement apartment where she had allegedly been kept prisoner since her disappearance.
Less than two hours after O'Rielly was found, Codiac Regional RCMP investigators swarmed around a Moncton duplex, arresting a 62-year-old Moncton man in connection with O'Rielly's disappearance.
Police investigators were still trying to figure out whether the suspect knew O'Rielly, whether she knew him and under what circumstances she came to be in his basement apartment in the blue-collar part of the city.
The man will face charges in provincial court today, but Mounties aren't yet saying whether anyone else will be charged or what specific charges the suspect faces.
O'Rielly was picked up by a Purolator truck driver who noticed her on the side of St. George Boulevard shortly after noon.
"She attracted the attention of a driver in the area," Codiac RCMP Const. Chantal Farrah said Wednesday, declining to give any information on the man who stopped to help her, just around the corner from the house where she was allegedly kept prisoner.
Police released few details on the arrest, but family members in Newfoundland said the delivery driver brought her to a local police station straight away after she escaped the apartment shortly after the suspect left the apartment building.
Mounties, armed with search warrants, combed the duplex inside and out and canvassed neighbours house-to-house. Officers said the man they arrested was known to them, but wouldn't say if he had been a suspect in this specific case. One officer described the suspect as an eccentric individual.
O'Rielly's family, who were convinced from the start their mother and wife had been kidnapped, asked for privacy and declined to answer questions.
They were seen being ushered into the RCMP headquarters on Main Street in Moncton earlier in the day.
O'Rielly was taken by police almost immediately for an examination at the Moncton Hospital's trauma unit where officials there declined to answer questions about her condition.
O'Rielly spent most of Wednesday telling police her story, but was expected to be able to go home later in the day.
"She's as good as can be expected," Farrah said. "She was taken to the hospital as a precaution. She was, quite obviously, overwhelmed."
Police said they didn't know why someone might want to kidnap the unassuming 54-year-old mother, wife and grandmother who for a living helped people prepare their tax returns and who was looking forward to a trip to Florida and to her upcoming retirement.
"Obviously," Farrah said, "that's what investigators are trying to discover."
She said the suspect didn't put up a fuss when confronted by police, Farrah said, and was taken away "without incident" to be questioned.
She said she didn't know if the man had a criminal record.
Codiac officers report the O'Rielly family is "excited to see their mother, their wife, their loved one" but they need time together after their ordeal.
25/03/10 - Thursday March 25, 2010
http://www.thetelegram.com/index.cfm?sid=333987&sc=79
lunatic from grabbing her and taking off...
