Deliveryman saves bound woman

SEVIER COUNTY, Tenn. —- A pizza deliveryman said he thought about his own wife’s safety when he saw an Atlanta woman bound with rope and begging for help inside a secluded cabin.

On Friday, police called the deliveryman a hero for rescuing the 24-year-old after she was allegedly kidnapped from Atlanta, driven to a cabin in the Smoky Mountains and raped.

“I kept thinking it could have been her,” Chris Turner said as he looked at his wife. “She could have been another one for his sex party.”

Police say David Joseph Jansen of Snellville abducted the woman as she was jogging around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday in her subdivision on Montgomery Ferry Road in Atlanta.

Jansen was arrested on charges of aggravated rape and kidnapping after a tip from Turner. The suspect was released from the Sevier County jail late Thursday on an $800,000 bond, said Capt. Jeff McCarter of the Sevier County Sheriff’s Department.

Jansen, 46, approached the woman and encouraged her to check out his new Dodge Charger, a report said.

The victim told police she didn’t recognize Jansen at first. But after a few minutes of talking, she recognized him as someone who attended the nightclub she and her husband own, according to a Sevier County Sheriff’s Department report.

Jansen encouraged her to sit down in the passenger seat to check out the interior, she told investigators. The woman complied and was immediately restrained, deputies said.

Jansen bound the woman’s hands and tied her to the car seat before driving her to Gatlinburg, Tenn., about 240 miles north of Atlanta, the report states.

He took her to a rented cabin in the mountains, where he bound her again, forced her to take some prescription pills, cut her clothes off and raped her twice, police said.

“It’s in the most isolated, desolate area of the county, way up in the mountains,” McCarter said.

The woman remained in the cabin for several hours until the deliveryman arrived to bring Jansen dinner —- an extra large supreme pizza, 10 hot wings and four 20 ounce-bottles of soda.

“He was signing the credit card slip when she popped up from the couch and showed me her tied hands and mouthed call 911,” said Turner, who has been delivering pizzas at Capelli’s Pizza in Gatlinburg for a month. “I said, ‘Are you for real?’ I didn’t believe her.”

The woman rolled her eyes and again silently pleaded for Turner to call police.

“My stomach was turning and I turned white as a ghost and left. I wanted to remain calm so he didn’t know I suspected anything,” Turner said Friday.

Turner then climbed into the delivery van, where his wife, Laniesha, was waiting. They drove to neighbor Bill Toomey’s house, where they called police.

Toomey and the pizza deliveryman waited for about 20 minutes for deputies to arrive. Worried that Jansen would flee, Toomey blocked the cabin’s driveway with his truck.

“I had a gun at my side in case,” said Toomey, who owns Toomey’s Country Market in Gatlinburg.

Deputies arrived shortly after and found the woman asleep on the couch, covered in a blanket.

“He saw the female tied up, secured the scene and untied her,” McCarter said.

Jansen told deputies the two were on a “romantic getaway from their spouses” and the woman was sexually aroused by bondage, according to the report.

Deputies didn’t buy this story, handcuffed Jansen and separated the couple. Once away from Jansen, the woman told police she had been kidnapped and raped, the report states.

“At this point, we don’t know what Mr. Jansen’s intent was, but the pizza deliveryman was instrumental in her safety,” McCarter said.

The woman was treated at a local hospital for the sexual assault, along with minor cuts and scrapes. She returned to Atlanta two days later, police said.

Jansen was charged with aggravated rape and aggravated kidnapping.

Late Thursday, several Atlanta attorneys arrived at the Sevier County jail and paid Jansen’s $800,000 bond, which required $80,000 in cash, McCarter said.

Pam Hill, who owns Stony Brook Chalets, said Jansen called and reserved the cabin early Tuesday. He arrived around 5 p.m. and paid with a credit card.

“He seemed normal and nice as could be,” said Hill, whose family owns 40 cabins in the Smoky Mountains.

The secluded cabin, which is about 15 miles outside Gatlinburg, is about two miles off the road, up a steep gravel driveway on the side of the mountain. A hot tub sits on the cabin’s deck, overlooking the mountains.

Jansen has no ties to Sevier County, McCarter said. Jail records show Jansen, who was born in Colorado, lives in Snellville with his wife and two children.

Deputies seized rope from the bed in the cabin and Charger, along with bits of the victim’s torn clothes and condoms, the report states.

Turner met the victim and her husband, who thanked him.

“I was doing my job and being a citizen,” the 32-year-old deliveryman said. “Plus, I got $13 off the delivery. That’s not bad for a half an hour.”

Jansen told deputies the two were on a “romantic getaway from their spouses,” according to the report. Deputies didn’t believe the story, handcuffed Jansen and separated the couple.