A 19-year-old woman whose false text messages claiming she was being held hostage caused the Atlanta police SWAT team to descend on a quiet Buckhead neighborhood before daybreak Thursday is in the Fulton County Jail, facing drug and other charges.
The incident began around 6:30 a.m. Thursday, when James White called 911 to report that his friend, Alexandra Dahm, had possibly been kidnapped from an Auburn Avenue club and was being held at a home on Darlington Road in Buckhead, Atlanta police spokeswoman Kim Jones said.
Jones said that White told police he was with Dahm at the Connect Lounge "when she suddenly went missing."
White told police he had received texts from Dahm indicating she was at the house on Darlington Road.
"Some of those messages read, ‘they will not allow me out of the car,' and 'several Asian males armed with multiple shotguns,' " Jones said.
Jones said that Dahm told White there were a total of seven males, all armed with shotguns.
"Mr. White stated that he drove to the location and spoke with Ms. Dahm in the driveway," Jones said. "He continued by stating she was afraid to leave the location and would not get in his car."
At that point, White called 911, and the SWAT team responded to the home, which is in a neighborhood off Piedmont Road near East Wesley Road.
"A perimeter was set up and hostage negotiators arrived," Jones said. "Ms. Dahm walked out of the house several hours later."
Jones said Dahm told officers that she was not in any danger and admitted that she had been using powder cocaine overnight.
Officers later interviewed the other six people who were at the home. The renter of the house gave officers consent to search the home, and no weapons were found inside, Jones said.
"The six occupants all volunteered their information and were released," Jones said.
After being checked out at the scene by medical personnel, Dahm was taken to the Zone 2 precinct for further questioning.
"At the Zone 2 precinct, Ms. Dahm requested to use the bathroom," Jones said.
While in the restroom, an officer observed Dahm "retrieve a baggie from her underwear, attempting to put it in the toilet," Jones said. "When asked, Ms. Dahm handed over a bag of powder cocaine."
Jones said Dahm also told investigators that she "may have overexaggerated her text messages," and admitted to deleting the text messages.
Dahm was taken to the Fulton County Jail, charged with possession of cocaine and tampering with evidence.
One of the other occupants of the house, 21-year-old Charlienne Singleton, told the AJC that she and her friends were “at this club chillin’ and we meet this girl. Some of the people who we were with knew her.”
“We all leave and we come here and she’s acting completely normal,” Singleton said. “We’re just all chillin’ perfectly fine and all of a sudden she just disappears.”
Singleton said that a couple of hours later, “we see the SWAT team coming up, and we’re all huddled together, scared and stuff.”
Jordan Charles, 20, who was also in the house, said it was not until they saw SWAT officers in the yard that they realized their house was the center of attention. "We saw a CNN van and I'm like ‘what's going on there's news over here,' and then turn around and we ARE the news."
Staff photographer John Spink contributed to this article.
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