MUNCY - After hearing clear, detailed testimony from the victim Friday morning, a district judge ruled there was sufficient evidence to hold an Old Lycoming Township man on charges of kidnapping his former girlfriend outside her job site last month.
From the testimony presented, it appeared the brief three-month relationship between the accused, 23-year-old Aaron Jonathan Morrison, and his former girlfriend, 19-year-old Keshia Trimble, was rocky right from the start.
"In the past, he threatened to cut my head off and throw it in a cornfield," Trimble said on the stand.
"He threatened to beat me and at one time he tried to push me out of a moving car," the woman testified.
"He told me his crew would rape and kill me. He has grabbed me by the throat several times. He tried to wreck my car while I was driving (by grabbing the steering wheel)," Trimble told the judge.
Trimble said that on the morning of Sept 26, as she was arriving for work at Hoopla's Family Fun and Grill on Lycoming Mall Circle just before 11 a.m., Morrison approached her, picked her up and put her in the back seat of his car, locking her inside.
As he drove her to a remote spot outside of Muncy, Morrison kept screaming over and over "It was my fault that I had sent him over the edge," Trimble, a resident of Northumberland County, testified.
"He screamed at me that I was forcing him to do something he didn't want to do. He said he was going to slash his throat," Trimble said.
In his vehicle, Morrison had duct tape and a knife, Trimble and Muncy Township Police Chief Craig McKibben, who also testified, said on the stand.
"I was scared for both his and my safety. I didn't know what he was going to do," said Trimble is a clear voice, showing no emotion during the 20 minutes she was on the stand.
She identified Morrison as her alleged abductor as he sat next to his defense attorney in a prison uniform.
The woman testified that she and Morrison had broken up a couple weeks before the kidnapping.
Trimble said that even though Morrison repeatedly threatened her during their relationship, police only got involved one other time before the abduction.
McKibben testified how he was directed to Peter Gray Road, just south of Muncy, by a 911 dispatcher. Trimble had managed to call 911 from her cell phone, telling dispatcher her first name and that she needed help. The line then went dead. The dispatcher was able to trace to the call to the remote spot.
McKibben said on the stand that he took Morrison into custody at gunpoint without incident after finding him and Trimble in the backseat of his car.
District Judge Jon E. Kemp ruled that Morrison, of 2340 Roosevelt Ave., will face further court action on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment and related offenses.
Kemp denied a motion by Morrison's defense attorney to reduce the man's $200,000 bail.
