| August 13,
2001 |
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| Deputy
Helps Foil Bogus Caldwell County Kidnaping |
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| An alert Burke County deputy was one of the
catalysts in spoiling a kidnaping plan hatched by four Caldwell County
teenagers on Monday. |
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| At approximately 3 a.m., Burke officers were
told to be on the lookout for a dark blue 2000 Jeep Cherokee reported stolen
from McDowell County. Deputy Chris Marsh spotted the vehicle a short time later
in the Knob area of Connelly Springs. Officers converged on the vehicle and
arrested three occupants for possession of a stolen vehicle. |
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| While this transpired, Caldwell County Sheriff's
investigators were busy investigating a reported kidnaping at a Shadowbrook
Drive residence in Lenoir, according to a news release. Kathy McLean, who was
at work, called 911 shortly after midnight and asked Caldwell officers to go to
her residence after she received a hysterical call from her ten-year-old
daughter. |
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| After officers arrived at the home, the girl
told them she had been tied up by three males who had broken into the
residence. The girl told investigators the men used duct tape and telephone
cord to bind her, and they may have done the same with her sixteen-year-old
sister, Jamie, who was missing from the residence. |
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| She reportedly was able to free herself and
call her mother at work after the suspects left the residence. |
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| Caldwell authorities stated that information
into the possible abduction of Jamie was sketchy because the ten-year-old
reportedly lost consciousness during the assault when one of the suspects put
his hand over hear mouth and banged her head against the floor. |
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| The girl was transported to Valdese Hospital
where she was treated and released for several bumps to the head and scratches
to the face and head. |
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| Friends of Jamie McLean were contacted in an
effort to develop possible information when it was discovered that the mother
of an acquaintance of Jamie's, Donald Helms, had just filed a stolen vehicle
report with the McDowell County Sheriff's Office. The report indicated the
vehicle had stolen by Donald, who was one of the occupants found inside the
vehicle by Deputy Marsh a short time later. Jamie McLean was not in the
found in the car, however. |
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| A search for Jamie continued into the morning
hours until she was located at a Rhodhiss convenience store and transported to
the Caldwell County Sheriff's Office. |
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| Detectives from Caldwell state their
investigation revealed Jamie McLean and Donald Helms were actually friends and
had a relationship, stating they were closely connected through heavy
involvement with Gothic and occult activities. |
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| The previous evening, detectives allege Jamie
and Helms talked on the phone and made a plan to run away along with two other
teens, Chris McCandless and Brian Laws, who were also found inside the stolen
car by Marsh. Jamie and Helms reportedly concocted a plan to make Jamie's
disappearance look like a kidnaping. |
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| The news release stated McLean left the door to
her residence open with the instruction for the three intruders to "do
something with her sister." The men allegedly bound and gagged the ten-year-old
girl, who was not aware of the plans. The teens also reportedly stole Kathy
McLean's .38 calibre pistol. |
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| Donald Helms, Christopher McCandless, and Brian
Laws, all age sixteen, were charged by Burke County officers with possession of
the stolen vehicle and jailed at the Burke Catawba Detention Confinement
Facility under a $3,000 bond. They, along with Jamie McLean, are facing charges
in Caldwell County which include the second-degree kidnaping of McLean's
sister. |
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| Also assisting in this case were members of the
North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and the Valdese Police
Department. |
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| ************************************************************** |
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