Kidnapped woman recounts ordeal

Thursday, August 31st 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

MCALESTER, Okla.-Linda Cassidy wasn't only relieved that the two young men accused of abducting her and her husband from their Oklahoma City home didn't killed them. She was also surprised.

"Every third word out of their mouth was something about how we were going to die and how they were going to kill us," Mrs. Cassidy, 49, said Tuesday.

"It was like some kind of movie or bad dream. I just kept thinking about how bizarre the whole thing was."

Najee Fulsom, 19, and a 16-year-old were brought to Oklahoma City on Tuesday on complaints of robbing, assaulting and kidnapping the Cassidys on Monday.

Authorities allege the pair knocked on the couple's door seeking jumper cables, but instead produced a gun and forced the couple into their pickup truck. The men then drove them to McAlester and left the couple tied up in a wooded area.

Cassidy, 66, freed himself and telephoned authorities, who later arrested the men in the couple's pickup truck along the Indian Nation Turnpike in southeastern Oklahoma.

Mrs. Cassidy sustained slight injuries but her husband's nose was broken and he sustained cuts and bruises while struggling with his abductors.

Besides threatening to kill them and not following through, Mrs. Cassidy said there were two other instances of seemingly odd behavior from the men.

"First, these two brought their own cassette of some awful gang murder music to listen to while they drove us around," she said. "Second, when we were going down the turnpike by McAlester, they stopped at the toll booth, made sure they put the right amount of money in and then waited for the green light.

"I mean, after all the laws they'd broken at that point, they were worried about not putting enough money in the toll booth."

Mrs. Cassidy also said the pair had said they wanted to go to Dallas and got angry when her husband told them they were going the wrong way.

"They were already angry and swearing all the time," she said. "But it really made them mad when my husband told them they were stupid because they didn't even know how to get to Dallas."

The suspects drove east along Interstate 40, keeping a gun trained on the Cassidys until they turned south on the Indian Nation Turnpike.

She said her husband grabbed for the steering wheel and the vehicle went off the road, through a ditch and a barbed wire fence.

Cassidy eventually broke free of his restraints after they were tied up and then untied Mrs. Cassidy. They walked to a nearby house where they called authorities.

"When someone is that foul-mouthed and keeps sticking a gun to your head and telling you they're going to kill you, you start to really believe it after two or three hours," Mrs. Cassidy said.

"It's just something nobody can understand until they go through it, and I hope they never do."