Sandy MaloneDyersburg, TN – A woman who escaped from a vacant home where she was being held hostage told authorities that her boyfriend had been keeping her in a closet for almost two months.
The victim was found by police hiding underneath a house in Dyersburg after she alerted a passerby that she had been kidnapped and that person called 911 for her, the New York Post reported.
Police said the woman had escaped through a window of the empty home.
She was wearing a sweatshirt and was covered in mud when she was found, WREG reported.
Police said she was suffering from facial cuts and weighed less than 100 pounds.
She was transported to West Tennessee Healthcare Dyersburg for treatment of her injuries.
The woman told police that her boyfriend – identified as 30-year-old Brenton Bell – had forced her into a closet several weeks earlier, WREG reported.
Police said that Bell used a cable and a locking device to bolt the closet door shut.
The victim told police that she was only allowed out of the closet for an hour a day during her captivity, and that she wasn’t given much food, WREG reported.
She told police there was no bathroom for her to use in the vacant home that was supposed to be unoccupied.
Investigators found human waste throughout the property, according to the police report.
The woman told police that she had been in a relationship with Bell but then he became abusive, WREG reported.
Police have not yet found Bell to arrest him.
AT 10: Dyersburg Police say 30-year-old Brenton Bell is wanted for holding his girlfriend captive inside a locked closet for two months.
What the small town is saying about the shocking discovery on @3onyourside pic.twitter.com/EI63x8wwN3
— Bria Jones WREG (@BriaJonesTV) March 14, 2023
He is described as a black male, approximately 5-feet, 5-inches tall, and weighting about 150 pounds, according to police.
Holly Matkin
