‘He said he was going to kill me’: naked and bound, woman escapes attacker

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This article was published 19/08/2024 (508 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An Indigenous sex-trade worker told a court how she fought for her life after escaping from a man who bound her legs and arms with packing tape and threw her in the bush after having sex with her.

“I thought to myself: This is where I die,” the 53-year-old woman testified last week.

Twenty-six-year-old Meris Hot, the woman’s attacker, was convicted after trial of assault, forcible confinement, uttering threats and obtaining sexual services for consideration.

“I thought to myself: This is where I die.”–Victim

The woman told court she was working on Pritchard Avenue the morning of Aug. 14, 2021, when Hot drove by and asked if she wanted to “go for a ride and get high.”

The woman, who court heard was struggling with a crack addiction, got in Hot’s car and the two drove to her cousin’s home where, with $50 she received from Hot, the woman purchased crack.

The woman testified Hot snorted cocaine before she performed a sex act on him in the car and Hot proceeded to drive to Highway 59, telling her he was going “somewhere private where no one will bother us.”

Hot turned east on Garven Road, and pulled over near a work site where the two consumed drugs, the woman said. She said Hot got out of the car to look for something in the trunk, where she saw piles of cash, “like something you would expect a drug dealer to have.”

The woman said she performed another sex act on Hot, after which he made repeated trips to the trunk and became aggressive and angry, claiming he couldn’t find his money.

Hot drove them to a nearby construction site, got out of the car and directed the woman to follow him to an area where they could have sex.

The woman said she saw Hot hiding a knife in his hand and started running away. He caught her, pulled her to the ground and started choking her before dragging her into the bushes and binding her ankles, knees, wrists, neck and mouth with packing tape.

“He said he was going to kill me,” the woman testified.

“He said he was going to kill me.”–Victim

Hot removed the tape from the woman’s mouth and forced her into another sex act before returning to his car, threatening: “If I can’t find what I’m looking for, you are going to be sorry,” the woman told court.

The woman struggled against her restraints, first freeing her wrists and then her ankles and knees before running through a field, following the sounds of traffic. The woman, wearing only a bra and with tape still around her neck, ran onto Garven Road, where she flagged down a passing motorist.

“I didn’t care if I was naked — I was alive,” she said.

The woman provided a police statement the same day. Court heard police were later unable to locate the woman until May 2022, when she identified Hot from a photo lineup. His DNA was later found on the packing tape.

Hot testified at trial he had been out celebrating his birthday with friends when the woman flagged him down and asked if he wanted to “hang out.” Hot claimed he had no idea the woman was a sex worker and the two talked about drugs before picking up crack and driving to Garven Road. Hot testified they talked about sex and the woman told him she was into “rough sex” and asked to be tied up.

Hot testified the sex was consensual, and claimed the woman was high and started “freaking out” over a payment dispute.

Provincial court Judge Michelle Bright rejected Hot’s evidence as “contrived and self-serving.” Hot’s claim the woman professed a desire for rough sex flew in the face of her credible testimony how apprehensive she is every time she gets in a car with a stranger.

“That’s because sex work is dangerous,” Bright said. “I can’t imagine a more dangerous proposition than a sex worker being driven 30 minutes outside the city to a remote area where there is not another soul around and not just agreeing, but asking the stranger to bind and gag her with tape.

“I didn’t care if I was naked — I was alive.”–Victim

“She did not run out into the middle of a highway naked because she all of a sudden freaked out,” she said. “This is the evidence of someone who experienced real fear and ran for her life.”

The case comes with Manitoba at the centre of a national crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. A 2019 inquiry determined Indigenous women are 12 times more likely to be slain or go missing.

Hot will be sentenced at a later date after the completion of a court-ordered report. He remains in custody.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca