Kidnapped Woman Found Dead After Call From Trunk of Car

She told family she was attacked at rest stop
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 8, 2016 2:39 AM CDT
Kidnapped Woman Calls Family From Trunk of Car
Maze's body was found in the trunk of her car around 12:30am Wednesday.   (Shutterstock)

Cops in Montana and Washington state are looking for suspects after a terrifying and apparently completely random kidnapping at a rest stop on Interstate 15. The victim, 47-year-old Rita Maze, was able to call her husband, daughter, and police from the trunk of a car, but investigators were unable to save her, NBC News reports. Her body was found in the trunk of her car early Wednesday in Spokane, Wash., more than 300 miles from the Wolf Creek, Mont., rest stop where she said an attacker had hit her over the head and forced her into the trunk around 11am Tuesday, the Billings Gazette reports. The cause of death has not been disclosed.

Police say Maze, who was a cook at Morningside Elementary School in Great Falls, was unable to give specifics about her location in the whispered calls to her family, but they were able to track her location through signals from cell towers. Her daughter tells the Great Falls Tribune that her mom was terrified and knew that the kidnapper had her gun. "He kept her in the trunk for 12 hours," says the daughter, who was able to tell her mother she loved her one last time before the signal was lost. Maze was on the way back to Great Falls from visiting family in Helena, Mont., and police say that as far as they can tell this early in the investigation, it appears to have been a random attack. (More Montana stories.)

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