LOMPOC, CA (KEYT/KVVU/CNN) – A kidnapping victim is still living a nightmare after she says her ex-boyfriend held her against her will for four days in September and forced her to marry him.
Virginia Paris says counseling has helped her tremendously, as she tries to get back on her feet following the ordeal.
“It's getting better as days go on, but I can tell you I cry a lot,” Paris said.
The woman says she wishes she called police when 52-year-old Joseph Hetzel kept showing up at her workplace in September.
“He came to my work a few days before, like five times in one day. He was very aggressive,” Paris said.
Days later, just minutes after she left work, Paris says Hetzel took her to Arizona against her will. It was frightening and frustrating, she says, because her pleas for help went unnoticed.
“I remember being in a bathroom and asking a lady for her cell phone, and she said no. I got really upset. I cried really hard. A lot of times he would follow me in the bathroom in the gas stations or wherever, and he would make sure I wouldn't talk to people,” Paris said.
When they went to Las Vegas, Paris thought she had a fighting chance because her family lives in the area, so she agreed to marry Hetzel in order to make a phone call. Surveillance video captured the ceremony.
Paris says she tried to leave before going through with the wedding. She believes Hetzel had hopes of going home afterward.
“But then he called his friends in Los Angeles… and that's where we found out that we were both on the internet and on the news and everything,” Paris said.
Four days after she says she was taken, Paris was finally able to get help at the Railroad Pass Hotel and Casino in Henderson, NV. Hetzel was later arrested in Las Vegas.
As Paris tries to piece together her new life, she’s thankful her friends and family were so vocal about her being missing and wishes the same luck for other families.
“I just want anybody that's missing to be found, you know. It just breaks my heart, and it just worries me. I just wish everybody could be found,” Paris said.
Paris says she’s working on getting a restraining order and marriage annulment.
Copyright 2017 KEYT, KVVU, Railroad Pass Hotel and Casino, Henderson Police Department, Santa Barbara County Sheriff, Starbucks, Little Neon C via CNN. All rights reserved.
