Man held at gunpoint after a stranger sneaks into his vehicle

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The site where a stranger sneaked into the victim's vehicle. Photo via WINK News.
The site where a stranger sneaked into the victim’s vehicle. Photo via WINK News.

A man says a stranger snuck into his vehicle when he went into a convenience store, the forced him to withdraw money from an ATM and sexually assaulted him Monday morning.

According to a report, the victim left his SUV unlocked while he went into a 7-Eleven at the corner of Sunshine Boulevard and SR 82 in Lehigh Acres around 5 a.m.. While inside the store, a man climbed into the vehicle and hid in the back seat.

A few miles down the road, the suspect jumped from the third row of the SUV to the second, holding a gun to the victim’s head, with the demand of $1,000. The suspect then threatened to kill him if he did not pay up.

The report says the suspect took the victims phone and searched the center console for any weapons.

The victim complied to the demand and drove to a Chase Bank to take cash out of an ATM, withdrawing the $800 daily max. The gunman ordered him to return to Lehigh Acres, and reportedly sexually assaulted the victim while in the vehicle. The suspect then got out of the truck and took off on foot, in the vicinity of Nimitz Avenue and Alexander Graham Bell Blvd.

Leaving a vehicle unlocked is something drivers like Alexander Leoni said they do all the time.

“I’ll leave my truck on and I’ll run inside and grab something to drink,” Leoni said, who lives in Lehigh Acres. “I’m you know, hold on a second, I want to make sure my car is locked because I don’t want that to happen to me.”

“Even sometimes I get pretty creeped out if I leave my vehicle unlocked,” Mike Davis said, who also lives in Lehigh Acres. “I look into the back seat because stuff like that happens and it can happen at any time, you know.”

The victim, unable to find his phone, immediately drove home and contacted the Lee County Sheriff’s office to report the incident. He stated in the report he was “in fear for his life the whole time and had the gun pointed at him for the duration of the event.”

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