Woman who says Georgia couple kidnapped and raped her says she thought she would die
A Hialeah woman who says she was beaten, raped and kidnapped before escaping from a motel room in the nude spoke publicly for the first time Monday and said her abductors threatened to kill her if she didn’t obey their instructions.
“I didn’t know if I’d get out alive at all,” said the 28-year-old, who refused to be photographed and wouldn’t give her name. “I don’t know how I’m ever going to get over this.”
The woman was doing her Sunday afternoon shopping at a Publix supermarket in Hialeah when, she said, Rashada Hurley, 32, approached her from the driver’s-side window asking for directions. When she lowered the window, the woman said, Hurley struck her in the head and knocked her out.
The next thing the woman said she remembered was Hurley holding her down in her car while Timothy Lowe, 37, drove and hit her, open-fisted, in the face.
“He (Lowe) kept asking if she (Hurley) has the knife. I’m panicking. I’m terrified,” said the woman. “I couldn’t make eye contact [with other drivers] or anything. I was held down in the car.”
The woman said they drove her to a Motel 6 at 7330 NW 36th St., where they used her Visa card to secure room 313. She said Lowe purposely parked the car out of sight while Hurley checked in using her driver’s license. In the hotel room, she was repeatedly raped, she said.
She was held for four hours against her will, and the victim claimed that Lowe forced her to text her mother and say that everything was alright. Finally, when Lowe was fumbling with her phone and Hurley was preoccupied, she ran out of the motel room completely naked and stopped someone driving on 36th Street.
The victim’s car was found abandoned the next day. Lowe and Hurley split from the motel room so quickly that they left behind identification, someone familiar with the incident said. The two were captured the next day after Miami police received complaints that Lowe and Hurley had entered a 7-Eleven on Biscayne Boulevard naked and poured two sodas and left without paying.
They were caught a block away with the sodas — still naked. With the car and their identification recovered, it didn’t take police long to match the incident at the Publix parking lot and the Motel 6 with Lowe and Hurely, police said.
At a court hearing the next morning after the couple had been charged with petty theft, indecent exposure, kidnapping, robbery and sexual battery, the judge said the couple had recently been married in Georgia and were in South Florida on their honeymoon.
Court records from an online site used primarily by private investigators and obtained Monday from the victim’s attorney show that Lowe has been arrested several times for battery, shoplifting, forgery and giving false statements in various counties in Georgia.
Carlos Silva, the attorney representing the woman, said his client decided to speak out for two reasons: to inform others of the dangers of trying to help strangers and to find possible witnesses for a future lawsuit against Publix, Motel 6, or both.
Lowe and Hurley remained at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center on Monday. They were both denied bond.
This story was originally published July 18, 2017 at 7:20 AM with the headline "Woman who says Georgia couple kidnapped and raped her says she thought she would die."