A woman in New York City who is reportedly being kept hostage devised a clever way to let the authorities know where she was.
The 24-year-old lady claims that before asking for assistance on a food delivery service, she was being kept captive and sexually assaulted in a home in the Bronx, according to ABC7.
Around 5:00AM on Sunday morning, the young woman used Grubhub to purchase a breakfast sandwich and a burger. Before noticing an unsettling remark in the additional delivery instructions, the staff at Yonkers’ Chipper Truck Café on McLean Avenue initially thought nothing of the normal order.
Owner Alice Bermejo confirmed to ABC7 that although the note was hastily written, it explicitly requested that the cops deliver the meal order. It said:
“please call the police his going to call me when u delivered come with the cones please don’ t make it obvious”
“She was basically saying to bring the police with the delivery,” said Bermejo.
Workers phoned Bermejo’s spouse after discovering the troubling note, and he advised them to inform the police. According to her, it was best to avoid any chances that the note was a forgery. She answered, “Better to be safe than sorry.”
A residence in the Eastchester neighbourhood of the Bronx was provided as the delivery address. The 32-year-old suspect Kemoy Royal was keeping the young woman prisoner and allegedly assaulting her sexually when police arrived, according to the authorities.
According to court records, the suspect opened the door thinking it was a delivery person and not the police when they arrived.
According to reports, Royal met the accused victim on a dating app months before. The relationship quickly descended into violence, and he started to exert control over her by only allowing her to use her phone to place food orders.
The young woman’s sole chance of assistance was placing a food order on an app for a 24-hour restaurant that was three and a half miles away, according to Alice Bermejo’s daughter, who has since thought about this.
Alice’s daughter Alicia stated, “Just knowing that like, we were there, and that being open 24 hours allowed her to have a way to get help.”
Royal has now been accused of committing rape, wrongful confinement, strangling, criminal sex acts, and sexual abuse, among other offences. A few days earlier, on June 14, he was accused of attempting to sexually assault a 26-year-old woman.
Thankfully, the woman was able to avoid him as well.
A friend of the 24-year-old woman called the restaurant to express gratitude to the workers for their assistance, according to Alicia Bermejo.
She recalled that they had called to express their gratitude and say “They called to thank us and just to be like, ‘thank you so much for helping my friend and just, you know making sure that she was fine,'” she said. “We really had no idea of the gravity of the situation until after everything had happened.”
