MILAN (AP) – A British model who says she was kidnapped in Italy broke down when investigators confronted her with a witness statement that she had been seen shopping for shoes with an alleged captor, according to court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.
Chloe Ayling initially told Milan police she was held, at times with her hands and feet cuffed to a dresser, at a remote farmhouse for six days and never left the dwelling until one of her kidnappers released her at the British consulate in Milan on July 17.
But on the second day of questioning, detectives presented the 20-year-old with a statement from a saleswoman who said she sold shoes to the model and the main suspect in her abduction the day before Ayling turned up at the consulate, according to Ayling’s court deposition.
In tears, the young woman told investigators she couldn’t give a “reasonable explanation” for why she had omitted the shopping trip, but said she considered the man she accompanied her best chance at freedom.
The arrest of a suspect in Ayling’s abduction and her account of a startling ordeal have garnered international media attention since details about the case emerged over the weekend.