911 kidnapping call: ‘They’re wanting some money, is what it is’

PENDER COUNTY, NC (WWAY) — Grabbed from a car, beaten, and threatened with a gun, that’s what an elderly woman was told her son went through, she explains in a call to Pender County 911.

The unidentified woman tells 911 ‘they’ got her son and threatened to kill him, but doesn’t identify who ‘they’ are.

“Where do they have your son?” the operators asked.

“He stopped at Johnson’s to take them back home and they grabbed him out of the car, she said. Started beating him up and putting a gun to his head,” the woman said, relaying information an unidentified woman told her.

“Then she said they threatened to kill them if I didn’t give them the money to take back and I don’t have it.. they’re wanting some money is what it is,” the woman said.

“Ok, and you don’t know where they have him right now?” the operator replied.

“No… they hit me at the wrong time. I don’t have no money right now. I know it’s probably because he owes them probably but this has happened before, they’ve made these threats.”

After the operators asks for her son’s name, the woman tells her it’s David Lee.

The Pender County Sheriff’s Office says there was no kidnapping. Investigators say the story that drug dealers kidnapped Lee was made up, in order to get $60 from Lee’s elderly mother.

Investigators say both Lee and Christopher Haltom face several charges, including filing a false police report.

They received a $5,000 bond.

A third person is expected to be charged.