WALDO, WI (WISN/CNN) - A Domino’s pizza delivery driver is being hailed as a hero after he alerted police to a kidnapping, likely saving the victim’s life.
Joseph Grundl says he was just delivering a pizza Thursday night to a home in Waldo, WI, when a woman standing behind the man who answered the door signaled for him to get help.
"She pointed to her black eye and then mouthed, 'Help me,’” Grundl said. “And then, it was maybe 30 seconds later, she mouthed, ‘Call the police.’”
Grundl left the home and called 911, leading to the arrest of 55-year-old Dean Hoffman.
Pizza delivery driver calls police, stops kidnapping after victim mouths 'help me'
Hoffman now faces multiple felony charges, including strangulation, kidnapping and false imprisonment.
The criminal complaint alleges Hoffman walked into his ex-girlfriend’s home on Thursday without knocking. She tried to call police, and they got into a struggle.
Hoffman then allegedly punched the victim in the face and forced her into her upstairs bedroom. The complaint says he “bound her hands together and her feet, hog tying them together with a power cord from her vacuum.”
When Hoffman allegedly shoved a towel into the victim’s mouth, she thought she might die, according to the complaint.
The victim said at one point Hoffman “remarked that he should have brought his gun in from the car so that he could shoot both of them.”
"The officer, the next day, told me himself, 'I don’t think she would have made it through the night,’” Grundl said.
Grundl says he just did what anyone else would do when faced with that situation.
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