Woman escapes after boyfriend allegedly held her captive in locked closet for 2 months, police say

A woman who said she was kidnapped and held captive in a closet by her boyfriend for two months managed to escape, leading to the man’s arrest, Tennessee police said in a statement Wednesday. 

Police found the woman on March 11 after a man working in Dyersburg, Tennesse, said the woman had approached him and said she had been kidnapped weeks earlier, according to the statement.

Officers responded to the scene and found the woman hiding under a nearby home, police said. When police found the 40-year-old victim, she had cuts on her face and looked very underweight, coming in at under 100 pounds.

“The victim reported that, for approximately two months, she was forced to stay in a closet that was locked by some type of locking device with a cable,” the department wrote, adding that she was “only allowed out of the closet for an hour a day.” 

According to Dyersburg officers, she was given very little food and had no access to a bathroom facility while being held captive.

The woman identified her alleged captor as 30-year-old Brenton Bell. She told police that the two were in a relationship, but that it turned “physically abusive” and led to her kidnapping, according to police. Bell was arrested four days after the woman was found and faces an aggravated kidnapping charge, police said.

The victim was taken to West Tennessee Healthcare Dyersburg where she was treated and released. She was also provided with additional services for victims of domestic violence, police said.