'I Was Terrified of Him,' Alleged Kidnapping Victim Testifies

A 21-year-old woman testified Wednesday that she was twice raped, had her left cheekbone and several ribs broken by beatings, shot in the thigh with a BB gun and locked in a bedroom against her will over the course of three weeks in a South Bethlehem boarding house this spring.

The woman also testified that her kidnapper drove her and another woman to Philadelphia once and that, on another occasion, she was given the keys to her captor’s vehicle and allowed to drive to a store alone to buy cigarettes.

After the victim testified for nearly an hour, District Judge Nancy Matos-Gonzalez ruled that there was enough evidence to bring alleged kidnapper, Steven Kitchell, 34, to trial.

Kitchell’s attorney, Matthew Potts, argued to have charges of kidnapping and false imprisonment dropped because of victim testimony indicating there may have been several opportunities for her to walk away.

But Matos-Gonzalez said the testimony she found “very, very compelling” was the victim’s description of her final day in captivity and the “surprise and elation” at finding Kitchell’s key ring, which “led to her freedom.”

That morning, the woman testified, Kitchell had threatened her with a black and silver handgun, and then left, leaving the key ring on the bed under a blanket.

Alone in the room, she, as quietly as she could, tried every key on the ring until she found the one that could unlock the deadbolt from inside—all the while listening to make sure no one was on the other side of the door, she testified.

“He scared me enough with the gun that I knew I had to leave that day,” the victim said. “I didn’t know what he was going to do next.”

The woman spoke quietly, often nervously covering her face with her hands between her answers. A county victim’s advocate sat in a chair next to her and gently rubbed her back through all of her testimony as a shackled Kitchell watched from the defense table and occasionally shook his head.

More than once, while describing her three-week stay at 826 Montclair Ave., the woman said: “I was terrified of him.”

The victim testified that when she first found the right key, there was a moment of hesitation. “I didn’t know what to do,” she said.

Previous attempts at getting help had been met with violence from Kitchell, she testified.

Once, for example, he forced her and another woman into a closet after he got wind of a call to 911 that she had made, she said. She said she was not able to provide the operator with an address and no emergency response ever came.

Kitchell became angry when he heard her and the other woman talking inside the closet and he opened the door, screamed at them and fired three shots from a BB gun into the closet, she testified. One of the shots hit her in the thigh, she said.

Once outside the room, she ran downstairs and out the front door, she testified. She found a stranger and borrowed a cell phone to call a friend who took her to Allentown. Later that day, she visited the hospital. Police were contacted while she was in the hospital. That was June 15. According to Bethlehem police, she had been held at the boarding house since May 23.

The woman testified that she first went to the Montclair Avenue house willingly with a woman friend she had just met. Once there, she met with Kitchell, got high on heroin and slept there overnight. The next morning, she said, she was told she could not leave. Her cell phone and her wallet with her identification cards had been taken from her, she said.

In addition to kidnapping and false imprisonment, Kitchell is charged with rape, sexual assault, indecent assault and simple assault. He remains in Northampton County Prison in lieu of $2.5 million bail.