A St. Paul woman held hostage in her car and beaten repeatedly by her boyfriend over 15 hours finally escaped into an East Side elementary school, according to a court document.
The 30-year-old woman, who has a baby with the man, told police that on the afternoon of Oct. 7, Sonny James Drury ordered her into her car and drove around beginning about midnight.
He blamed her, she said, for his impending return to prison. Drury was on supervised release for a 2001 conviction for attempted murder in which he brutally beat a St. Paul man on Payne Avenue.
Drury, 30, of St. Paul, was charged Thursday in Ramsey County District Court with felony domestic assault and false imprisonment.
According to the criminal complaint:
ADVERTISEMENT
The woman told police that Drury had been living with her until a few days earlier, when he learned that the state Department of Corrections had a warrant out for him from the attempted-murder conviction.
She heard from him around midnight and agreed to meet him in the area of East Ivy and Prosperity avenues. She was in her car with a female friend.
Drury ordered the friend out of the vehicle and got in the driver's seat.
The victim "soon realized that Drury seemed paranoid and on drugs," the complaint said. She told police he was hitting her and driving too fast for her to let herself out.
Drury "punched her for at least an hour, repeatedly telling her, 'It's all your fault that I am going back!' " He threatened to slam the car into
a tree if police tried to stop him, the complaint said.
She escaped once, she told police, when Drury pulled into the Maplewood Apartments complex on Larpenteur Avenue after seeing squad cars ahead of them. She ran toward the squads. Drury caught her.
He forced her to walk through yards, traverse a golf course and climb over fences. They stopped at two houses near 3M, at Case Avenue and Hazel Street, where Drury knew people. At the second house, the victim ran out the back door and toward the elementary school. Drury followed in a blue Chrysler Pacifica, but the woman ran inside. School staff called police, the complaint said.
ADVERTISEMENT
Before officers got there, the school director saw a vehicle fitting that description drive by at least twice. She heard a man yell at the woman, "I see you! I'm going to get you!"
He drove into the school parking lot but left before police arrived.
Officers found the victim sitting in her mother's car outside the school.
"(She) was shaking and crying and was initially too frightened to get out of the vehicle," the complaint said. "She said, 'I am so scared that he is still around.' "
They persuaded her to go with medics to an ambulance.
"Photographs show (the victim) with red marks and bruises all over her face, bruised and swollen lips, bruises on her chin and neck, bruises inside and on the edges of her left ear, ear-shaped bruising behind her left ear, bruises up and down both arms, both hands covered with dark bruises and injuries, and dark bruises on her stomach, up and down her left side, and on her legs," the complaint said.
Drury told police Oct. 15 that he and the woman had been together for about two years. When asked about the Oct. 7 incident, he ended the conversation.
On Friday, Drury was being held at the Ramsey County Jail.
ADVERTISEMENT
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
