Four men arrested in a string of kidnappings and robberies in and around downtown Chattanooga have had their cases bound over to a grand jury.
In preliminary hearings for two of the suspects on Tuesday, victims of the late August incidents recounted how they were ambushed, pushed into the trunks of their own cars and held hostage – one for as long as 10 hours – as their attackers made plans to rob their homes.
“It looked like they had come out of the bushes. … I got hit in the back of the head with a pistol,” 19-year-old victim Mychael Chunn said during court testimony. “They said, ‘If you don’t cooperate we’ll kill you.'”
Christopher Turner, 19; Jeffery McClendon Jr., 19; Twain Jackson, 20; and Quintez Bulloch, 21, face charges of aggravated kidnapping, aggravated robbery, conspiracy to commit aggravated kidnapping and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery.
A 17-year-old male is charged with the same crimes, but his name is not being released because he is a juvenile.
The 17-year-old, Turner and McClendon are being linked to Chunn’s kidnapping and the kidnapping of Joseph Clark a few days later. All three confessed to Clark’s kidnapping, according to the affidavit.
Video surveillance showed some of the men, including Jackson and Bulloch, pawning stolen items from Chunn while he was still being kept in the trunk of his car, police said.
Clark was attacked on his way to work early one morning near the Hunter Museum of American Art but escaped from the trunk of his car while the men were driving, he testified Tuesday.
“I wiggled with the wires and found the latch,” he said. “When the car slowed, I hung half my body out and slid out. I got up and sprinted in the opposite direction.”
Contact Joan Garrett at jgarrett@timesfreepress.com or call 423-757-6601.