[Warning: Potentially Triggering Content]
A Nebraska woman is opening up about a terrifying kidnapping that nearly claimed her life. And it was all at the hands of her ex-boyfriend.
Jesserae Beck, a Lincoln mother of three, is currently recovering after a brutal attack… one that left her with a collapsed lung, patches ripped out of her hair, metal pins in her ribs, and other severe injuries. But she’s alive — and able to tell her story.
In a vulnerable interview with KOLN published this month, the 42-year-old opened up about a relationship with ex-boyfriend Christopher Collins, which turned abusive over the summer:
“I met Chris in July of last year. We started seeing each other, going on dates. Our relationship was kind of on-and-off.”
Relationship Turns Abusive
The 42-year-old reminisced on cooking with the 36-year-old — something they both enjoyed doing. But in August, a switch flipped in him. Beck told the outlet:
“He never laid a hand on me previously. Never would I have ever imagined that any of this would have ever taken place, to be honest.”
Related: Healthcare Exec & Her Husband Arrested After Leaving Infant Alone On Beach!
But that’s exactly what happened. According to Beck, Collins savagely beat and strangled her that month, leading her to file for a protection order. Per court docs, Collins choked Beck, punched her in the face, smashed her head into the floor, and broke her ribs. In her filings, Beck wrote that she felt as if Collins was going to kill her. She told the outlet:
“It was like he snapped into a completely different realm. It was hard for me to understand, like, why would you do this? Why would you have wasted all the things that you’ve built as a man, to hitting a woman and could possibly lose everything?”
After the vicious August attack, Collins was arrested and charged with assault by strangulation. However, unbelievably, the two ended up finding their way back to one another after the brutal incident. Collins apparently informed Beck he wanted to move forward with a plan they had been mulling over for months: IVF. Because that’s a great plan after abuse — bring kids into it. She told the outlet:
“For some reason I was searching for closure, and I shouldn’t have been. And it tore me apart. It didn’t tear me apart that I had gotten beat. I was more worried about him and how he was feeling in those moments.”
That’s just so heart-wrenching. But just goes to show the sort of manipulation abusers inflict on their victims.
On the night of September 24, the pair went to the court so Beck could ask for the protection order to be lifted. And that same night, she left her home to bring Collins a meal, telling her daughter she’d be quick. Instead, she didn’t return home at all.
The Kidnapping
Beck told the outlet the next thing she remembers is waking up in one of Collins’ rental properties with no recollection of anything that had happened. He told her he had struck her, apparently SO BRUTALLY that he thought he’d killed her:
“He actually thought I was dead, essentially, and he didn’t know what to do. I’m waking up in a completely different house, but he wasn’t expecting me to wake up, I think was the thing.”
She recalled feeling sick after getting up to use to bathroom in the dark, so she went and laid down:
“I went to go lay down and I laid down in a different bedroom than him. And then next thing I know, he’s yelling, panicking, wondering where I’m at. At this point, I had no idea what had happened. It’s like my body was in a state of shock or something.”
So, she got in bed with Collins — bloodied and still with no memory of what happened beyond what he told her:
“Listening to a man tell you what he did to you, and you have to lay next to him for several hours, all while he’s telling you how much he loves you, and that we were so close to the end; that was hard for me to process.”
“Close to the end”… JFC.
According to Beck, Collins admitted to her the assault was “really bad this time” and that he didn’t want her to see her own face because of it:
“How did the person that I love so much bring us both here? Like, not only is he ruining my life, but he’s ruining his own. And I couldn’t fathom what was going through his head, nor did I want to ask.”
But in that moment the main thing on her mind was trying to “buy as much time as I could so that nothing bad happened to me.” But Collins’ behavior kept getting more and more deranged:
“When he first got me into the other bedroom, he asked me if I would slit his throat, and I said, ‘I cannot do that and I will not do that’” … I said, ‘I will not watch somebody I love bleed out by the hands of myself.’ And he said, ‘Well, then I’ll kill you and then I’ll kill myself.’”
And at that moment, she told him to do whatever he felt like he had to.
Whoa.
Collins did NOT kill her — and in fact thanked Beck for not killing him as he asked. He even told her he’d take her to the hospital the following day and turn himself in… But then Beck heard something strange: loud bangs and the permeating smell of gas. According to her, Collins said it was someone working on lines in the area, “but in the back of my head, I knew what he had done. He had zero intention of both of us making it out.”
So, Beck prayed… For her three kids, for her sisters, her extended family members, and more:
“I just kept praying and praying and praying before I fell asleep, ‘Please, somebody find me. I do not want to end my life here on this note.’”
The Rescue
She then awoke to more loud bangs — which she at first thought was the house blowing up amid the gas leak. But it was actually a SWAT team there to rescue her. And at the same time, Collins proceeded with a last-ditch effort to kill her:
“I remember Chris getting up after me and grabbing a glass bottle of Tito’s, and he slammed it on my head right here. And then he got on top of me trying to strangle me. And then SWAT attacking him. And I remember looking up and there was like three or four guns right above my head and this man grabbing my hand and getting me out.”
That’s SO insane.
She was brought to the safety of a SWAT vehicle — naked and unable to move because of her injuries:
“I don’t know how much longer it would have lasted before we blew up. But he would have blown up not just us, but he would have blown up a couple more houses on top of us. So not only would my life have been gone, but somebody else’s innocent lives would have been gone as well. And that is a hard pill to swallow, too.”
At the time, Beck had no clue she was being searched for:
“And then (the SWAT officer) looks at me and he said, ‘You’re the girl that everybody’s been looking for.’ And I said, ‘I think you must have the wrong girl.’”
The fact that that was her reaction just goes to show how incredibly disoriented she was…
Beck was then taken to the hospital:
“I just knew that I was in really bad shape. I was told that he broke all of my ribs on my left side. I had a fractured sternum, which I still have now. I have severe bleeding on my brain in the frontal lobe area. He busted my nose and a facial bone, and then obviously my face was swollen really bad. I had bruises and black eyes and things that makeup can kind of cover up now, but you can still see some of them.”
She continued:
“But also internal wounds that I will never forget, because not only did he break all my ribs, he punctured a lung that filled up with air and blood. And I had four severe displaced rib fractures that they had to put metal on my ribs, which I will have for the rest of my life.”
Now, still in recovery, Beck has to use a walker to get around.
A Complex Situation
Breaking down in tears, she told the news station:
“I still ask myself, ‘Why would you do that to me,’ you know? Because I’m sorry, but I was so good to that person. Like, I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. He wasn’t perfect either. But … being with him, I realized how good of a woman I actually was. And everything that I was reaching for, I have to start over. And that is the hardest thing for me. To sit here and question the ‘why’s,’ I have to tell myself I can’t go searching for that anymore. It’s only going to lead me to more bad things that I don’t want.”
Poor woman… Imagine if they had succeeded in bringing a child into the world together.
Beck now suffers from an array of lingering issues, including cognitive damage, including memory loss, an aversion to loud noises, and more, all of which she has to go to rehabilitation for:
“I try to stay positive, because if you continue to live in the negative and you wonder the why’s, you’re going to stay there forever. And I don’t want to stay there forever,. So my biggest goal is to keep going and be motivation for other women. You’re not alone — there’s help out there.”
She also expressed complex feelings for Collins:
“Love doesn’t stop just because something happened. I have to learn to un-love a person, and I don’t want any ill-will or harm to him. That’s just not who I am as a person and that’s not how my heart is built. I’ll continue to pray for him that he gets the help that he deserves and he needs, and I will always thank him for the good times that he did provide me. And I’m sad that it got to this point.”
In the wake of his arrest, the alleged abuse is faced with several felony charges, including kidnapping and terroristic threats.
Beck concluded:
“People are like, ‘Why did you walk into the lion’s den?’ And whatever, but what you don’t understand is that I’d been with this person off-and-on for almost two years, and he never laid a hand on me. Even in verbal fights he would go downstairs and separate himself from me. It wasn’t anything that I thought would have ever happened. That’s just not how you feel inside. And you can be manipulated very easily when you feel so much for someone, you know? So that’s why I chose to go back.”
We hope Beck continues to heal physically from the abuse she endured — but also mentally from everything she is still fighting to come to terms with. You can visit a GoFundMe to help with her healing journey HERE. You can also hear her talk more about her story (below):
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available. Consider calling the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233, or text START to 88788, or go to https://www.thehotline.org/
For more information on violence against women, go to https://www.justice.gov/ovw/resources-for-survivors
[Images via Hailee Quakenbush/GoFundMe]
The post Woman Kidnapped By Boyfriend -- And Saved Just As He Was About To Kill Her! Read The Harrowing Story… appeared first on Perez Hilton.