HAMLET — Two Ohio men are facing kidnapping charges after what police are calling a beach vacation gone bad.
A call came into the Richmond County 911 Center around 11 a.m. Tuesday from a woman saying she was being held against her will, according to the Hamlet Police Department.
The woman reportedly said she was in a Toyota car, heading toward Rockingham on the way back to Dayton, Ohio.
Lt. Donald Morton, head of the Hamlet Police Department’s Patrol Division, said he caught sight of a white Toyota Corolla around King’s Gate Church and began to follow it. Once he determined it was likely the suspect vehicle, he cut on the blue lights.
The car finally came to a stop near Clemmer Road where the Rockingham Police Department and Richmond County Sheriff's Office assisted.
Police say during the investigation, they learned that the 20-year-old alleged female victim had gone to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, with 37-year-old Darnell Morgan Jones and his uncle, 68-year-old Robert Mitchell Kinney. All three are from Dayton.
According to officers, there was an altercation while they were in South Carolina and the men refused to let the woman out of the car, which was driven by Kinney.
The two men were arrested and each charged with first-degree kidnapping. They were booked into the Richmond County Jail where they remained early Wednesday evening, each under a $100,000 secured bond.
Police say the woman was planning to visit relatives in North Carolina before going back to Ohio.
A search of records with the Ohio Department of Corrections shows neither Jones or Kinney has any prior convictions in that state.
All defendants facing criminal charges are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
