A Florida woman trying to flee the allegedly abusive boyfriend who was keeping her hostage succeeded when he wouldn’t let her go alone to the vet with her dog and she slipped a panicked note to a staff member.
“Call the cops,” she wrote in shaky handwriting. “My boyfriend is threatening me. He has a gun. Please don’t let him know.”
The 28-year-old woman — whom PEOPLE is not identifying — told police that Floyd, 39, allegedly beat and threatened her during an argument Wednesday night in their DeLand home, then refused to let her leave for two days.
Her harrowing ordeal began, she said, when Floyd accused her of flirting with other men and afterward told her to go into their bedroom because he was going to call several men to come over and have sex with her, according to a criminal complaint that lays out the allegations against him.
The woman told police she pretended to comply but instead went to the bedroom and jumped out of a window.
The pair wrestled over the weapon, leading it to discharge two to three bullets into the floor and end the argument with Floyd still controlling the gun, the woman said.
She said she then slept for 22 straight hours, suffering from what she believed to be head trauma. After she awoke, “Jeremy apologized for his actions, saying that God was punishing him,” she told police, according to the criminal affidavit.
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Volusia County Sheriff’s Office
The woman said that on Friday, she convinced Floyd to let her take her dog to the animal hospital but he refused to let her go alone. On the way, he again pointed the loaded gun at her and threatened to kill her and her entire family, she alleged.
At the vet, the woman made an excuse to go to the bathroom while she and Floyd waited and slipped her note to a staff member, who quietly summoned DeLand law enforcement.
Deputies who met with the woman described how her left eye was swollen and bruised, with lacerations on her hand from where she said she had fought for control of the gun and bruises on her arms and legs, which she attributed to her attempted window escape.
She was treated and released from a hospital with a possible concussion.
Floyd told investigators the couple had been drinking alcohol on Wednesday night “while mixing it with suboxone as well as other unknown white pills,” authorities said. He allegedly affirmed the argument but said he was “joking” about calling friends to come have sex with the woman, and he attributed her injuries to her window jump.
“When asked as to why he would not allow [the woman] to leave the residence, Jeremy responded that he did not want her to run into any strangers,” police wrote in their affidavit.
He said he retrieved the handgun and then tried to keep it from the woman in a struggle because “he felt she was going to commit suicide,” the affidavit states.
He is being held at the Volusia County jail with no bond.
An attorney for him was not identified in court records. It was unclear Monday if he has entered a plea.
source: people.com
