Kentucky deputies found a missing 16-year-old North Carolina girl hidden beneath a trap door after her abductor’s mother called police because the girl and her son had been arguing.
Zackery Jones, 34, was arrested and charged with assault, strangulation, two counts of unlawful transaction with a minor, resisting arrest, unlawful imprisonment, drug paraphernalia, possession of a controlled substance, tampering with physical evidence, rape, sodomy, use of a minor in a sexual transaction by electronic means, and terroristic threatening, WTVQ reported.
The girl had been missing from her grandmother’s home since December 6, when Jones allegedly drove to Fayetteville, North Carolina, and brought her back to his Lincoln County, Kentucky, home after communicating with her online.
He initially told her he was 19, then when she asked why he looked older than his pictures, told her he was 25, WRAL reported.
Jones admitted raping the girl on at least 10 occasions after getting her high on marijuana and crack, the station said.
The kidnapping began unraveling on Christmas day when Rhonda Jones, the alleged kidnapper and rapist’s mother, called police because of an “altercation between her son and his girlfriend,” WTVQ said.
“They were arguing, yelling and screaming,” she said, according to WRAL. “It’s probably the hardest thing I had to do.”
Deputies arrived but found only Zackery Jones, who told them a “woman” had been at the house, but she left. When they spotted drug paraphernalia — and Jones grabbed it and tried to toss it into his wood stove — they took him into custody, WKYT reported. After securing him in a patrol car, they deputies returned the house and found girl beneath a trap door that was hidden under a rug in his bedroom.
Rhonda Jones told WRAL she didn’t know about the trap door or the drug paraphernalia in her son’s bedroom because she “never went up there.” She also said she had no idea the girl was 16.
“I asked him how old she was. He said, ‘she’s 19.’ So, I took that as the truth,” she said. “I believed him, because a lot of girls looked older than they are.”
But, she said, she was “shocked” to learn the girl was just 16. “I’m always upset when he lies to me,” she said.
The girl told deputies that Jones had a gun and threatened to kill her multiple times and that he told her to always say she was 18. She also said that they were stopped for a traffic violation on their trip to Kentucky and that Jones had threatened the deputy if he made them step out of the car.
Rhonda Jones blamed the girl for her son’s arrest.
“To me, she willingly came with him,” she said. “I just feel like, they’d probably been talking. I don’t know how long he’s been texting her. From what the cops said that she was unhappy where she was at, and she felt like she was cared for and came with him.”
Jones may also be facing charges in North Carolina related to the kidnapping.
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[Featured image: Zackery Jones/Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office]
