NEW BEDFORD, Mass. -- A Rhode Island television host and fiance of a district attorney was abducted, assaulted and then locked in a car trunk for 18 hours before someone heard her banging, officials said Saturday.
Sheila Martines, 32, co-host of 'PM Magazine' on WJAR-TV Channel 10 in nearby Providence, R.I., was abducted at knifepoint by an unknown assailant at about noon Thursday when her rented Mercedes Benz 190 broke down, officials said.
The man held the knife to Martines's throat and forced her to drive about 20 miles to a rural wooded area, where she was assaulted and locked in the trunk, said Bristol County District Attorney Ronald Pina, Martines's fiance.
'She was very, very cold and we have had cases in this office where people have been left in trunks and not come out alive,' Pina said.
Martines's body temperature was 95 when a nearby resident heard her knocking on the inside of the car trunk at 6:30 a.m. EDT Friday. She remained in physical pain from the incident and has sought counseling, Pina said.
'She stayed awake all night,' Pina said. 'She didn't allow herself to sleep because she felt if she went to sleep, she was afraid she wouldn't make up.
'She would say the very thing that kept her going in the night was because she was a reporter,' Pina said. 'As a reporter, she started to think about the details so that she could hopefully tell them to someone one day.'
Martines was allegedly assaulted in the woods off Wellington Street in Dighton before she was placed in the trunk, said Pina, who refused to describe the alleged attack or elaborate on the extent of her injuries.
Martines was able to give police enough information about her abductor for a composite sketch to be drawn, Pina said.
The assailant was described as a white male between 25 and 35 years old with brown hair and brown eyes who stood between 5-foot-7 and 5-foot-11 and weighed about 150 pounds. He was last seen wearing a blue jacket, black T-shirt, blue jeans and sneakers.
Martines banged on the inside of the car's trunk with a crutch stashed inside the trunk, attracting the attention of a resident of a nearby house who called police, Pina said.
The keys to the car were left in the ignition, leading authorities to believe the assailant walked away from the woods and may have been quite familiar with the area, Pina said.
While Dighton Police Patrolman Joseph Martin said authorities had 'a couple of suspects in mind,' Pina denied there were any firm leads. He said he called Saturday's news conference in case any neighbors may have witnessed the incident.
While Pina did not offer a possible motive in the attack, he doubted it had any connection to Martines being the fiance of the district attorney. 'But for the fact that she was there, it could have been anyone else,' he said.
Pina also said he intended to stay on the case, despite his emotional ties to the case. 'No, I'm not stepping aside in any way, shape or form,' he said. 'The last time I looked, I was the D.A., and I still am.'
