Her alleged abductor, Anthony Zappa, a fugitive wanted for various crimes in several states, was arrested and charged with kidnapping. Authorities on Thursday were calling the honors student "very clever and very brave" and said she was instrumental in persuading Zappa to surrender. Police said Sluti worked the phone during the standoff, confidently relaying each side's reassurances and demands.
Zappa wouldn't speak to authorities surrounding the cabin until minutes before the surrender, but it was clear he was hovering over Sluti while she talked, Lake County Undersheriff Mike Sargeant said.
He made two demands, Sergeant said: He didn't want officers to shoot him, and he wanted to serve his prison time in Minnesota. Zappa, 29, also known as Anthony Steven Wright, was already wanted on charges including assault, theft and gun violations in Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin and Louisiana. He had eluded authorities since February for failing to appear in Minnesota on a burglary charge, and at one point, police closed the Mall of America near Minneapolis after he was spotted.
The day after she was kidnapped, Sluti tried to phone family and friends but was cut off, police said. On Sunday, her call got through and was traced to a cabn near Yellowstone National Park, but police found it empty. Authorities linked Zappa to the abduction through a stolen sport utility vehicle believed used in the kidnapping and found abandoned in Montana, not far from where a blue Toyota Tercel had been stolen.
On Wednesday, a landlord tipped off police to the cabin on Flathead Lake after reporting an unfamiliar car nearby.
It was a blue Tercel. Please enter email address to continue. Witnesses said a man who matched the suspect's description hit a girl who looked like Sluti over the head and dragged her into a Chevy Suburban in the parking lot of the mall Friday evening. A few of Sluti's belongings were found nearby, and when Montana police got to the cabin where the call originated, they found the Suburban that was taken in Nebraska, strengthening their belief that Zappa grabbed her.
Police found the Suburban abandoned 30 miles from a cabin, and a Toyota Tercel was reported stolen nearby. There were also reports of sightings of the two in the area, which borders Yellowstone Park. When the teen left home for the local mall on Friday, the last thing she told her parents was, "If I get any phone calls, tell my friends I'll be home shortly.
Anne's parents, Donald and Elaine Sluti, went public soon after she went missing — pleading with the kidnapper to release their daughter. Several witnesses said they saw a man who looked like Zappa loitering in the Kearney mall parking lot before the abduction of Sluti.
The massive Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn. Police in Kearney said that a number of license plates were reported stolen from the mall parking lot Friday.
A woman also said that a man matching Zappa's description offered to help her change a tire on her car that had been slashed, but he made her uncomfortable and when she told him someone was coming to help her, he disappeared. Witnesses told police that the man who slashed the car's tire was driving a Suburban that matched the one found in Montana.
The Des Moines Register reported on Wednesday that police in Mason City, Iowa, say that similarities between the kidnapping of Sluti and the abduction of a TV anchorwoman in have led them to believe Zappa may have been responsible for that crime as well. Mike Halverson said Zappa, who is also known as Anthony Steven Wright and pleaded guilty to a string of burglaries in Mason City in January , would have been a suspect in the anchorwoman's disappearance, but authorities believed he was in jail at the time.
According to the paper, Mason City police went back and checked court records after learning of the details of Sluti's abduction, and found that Zappa was not in jail when the anchorwoman, Jodi Huisentruit, was abducted. Like Sluti, Huisentruit disappeared in what police believe was a spur-of-the-moment kidnapping, and the purse and personal belongings of both were strewn near the site where they were last seen.
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