The search for a woman allegedly seen bleeding from the face and screaming for help in a white tractor-trailer cab in New Jersey has been found safe after a 26-hour manhunt, police announced Thursday evening.
A search was launched Wednesday afternoon after a witness reported seeing the woman bleeding and the man driving the truck pulled her into the cab around 2 p.m. on Route 130 heading for the Ridge Road exit, city police said. of South Brunswick.
Authorities released footage of the incident, asking for tips on finding the truck.
The woman and man in the incident were tracked down at 5:10 p.m. Thursday, police said, and said the case was not as bad as it first appeared.
The pair were identified as a married couple in their 50s, Deputy Chief Jim Ryan told NBC News.
It turned out the woman was bleeding after hitting her head on the vehicle and panicked trying to climb out the window, and her husband sped to the truck to get help, Ryan said.
Authorities said they received tips from around the country, but the tip came from Gabrielli Truck Sales, a truck dealership located on Route 130 near where the incident happened, police said.
The business found video that allowed detectives to identify the truck and the woman inside.
Authorities searched Middlesex and Union counties for the white truck, and detectives observed a man matching the witness’s description leaving the truck and approached him.
Detectives also found the woman in the video at the same location.
The two agreed to go to police headquarters and talk to detectives.
At that point police learned the man “came to rest” in the vehicle and his wife “fell forward and hit her head,” Ryan said.
“He pulled over to the shoulder of the road when he saw her hit her head. She saw blood coming and immediately panicked because she thought it was really bad so she screamed for help and wanted to pressure him. When he stopped the truck and looked and saw the bleeding, he knew he had to get up to get help,” Ryan said.
“He never saw the witness or realized there was someone who saw the encounter,” Ryan added.
He said the woman’s bleeding eventually stopped and the couple ended up going to a local Rite Aid to get a bandage for her.
Ryan said when detectives found the couple, they saw an obvious injury on the woman and she had a bandage on the side of her head.
Ryan said they also found video from inside the truck to confirm the couple’s account. He called finding the pair like “finding a needle in a haystack.” Calls for tips came in from Texas, California and Washington, and police received help from the FBI.
“So often our stories are sad and tragic, and it has a positive outcome because so many people got involved quickly and we found the answers,” Ryan said.
Chief Raymond Hayducka credited finding the pair as a “huge team effort, from the community providing tips to detectives following the leads.”
“It was a grueling 26 hours, but we were able to find the woman and make sure she was safe,” Hayducka said.
