BOSTON (Reuters) - Police charged a Maine couple on Monday of kidnapping their pregnant 19-year-old daughter, who was bound with rope and duct tape and bundled into her parents' car to force her to have an emergency abortion.
Nicholas Kampf, 54, and his wife, Lola, 53, were arrested on Friday in a New Hampshire parking lot after their daughter Katelyn escaped by persuading her parents to untie her so she could use a Kmart bathroom.
A court affidavit said her parents chased her out into the yard after an altercation, grabbed and tied her hands and feet together. Her father then gagged her and carried her to their Lexus and they drove toward New Hampshire.
"The case facts are somewhat bizarre," aid Mark Dion of Maine's Cumberland County Police Department, which is involved in the investigation. "It is a bit of a shock."
He said the Kampfs, who were arraigned in New Hampshire's Salem District Court on Monday on kidnapping charges and held on bail of $100,000 each, appeared to have been angry that their daughter was pregnant by a man who is now in jail.
Once away from her parents, the teenager fled to a nearby store and telephoned police, who later found the parents driving around the parking lot, searching for their daughter. The teen was found in a "hysterical" state, police said.
"Inside their car, it is my understanding they found duct tape, severed rope, a knife, scissors, a .22 caliber rifle and a loaded magazine for that weapon in the pant pocket of Mr. Kampf," said Dion.
Although abortion procedures are available in Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire, the Kampfs wanted the procedure done in New York state, Dion said.
"It appears that the parents concluded or were informed that given the term of her pregnancy that service would not be available to them in any of the northern New England states but that it might be available to them in New York state," he said. He declined to identify the stage of the teen's pregnancy.
If convicted, the Kampfs face 7-1/2 to 15 years in prison.
