In a hair-raising incident that unfolded on the idyllic island of Maui, a California couple found themselves in the crosshairs of a masked gunman during a carjacking.
The couple, Alex and Justina Lucero, were on a work trip and had taken a day off on June 4 to explore the picturesque island. Their day of leisure quickly turned into a nightmare when a masked assailant hijacked their rental car and chased them up Haleakal?, firing shots and forcing them to seek refuge overnight.
According to the Daily Mail, the couple was driving a rental silver Ford Mustang on the Kaup? side of Haleakal? when they noticed a road closed sign that had been pushed aside. "We were told earlier that day by some local, 'Yeah, you can go all the way through. It used to be closed, but it's not anymore.' So we weren't suspicious of anything like that," Justina recalled. The couple was also advised to let locals pass them on the road, as they would not be as interested in the scenery.
The situation took a drastic turn when, after passing the road closed sign, they noticed a truck behind them. Alex pulled over to allow the vehicle to pass. However, as they rounded a blind curve, the truck blocked their path. "The driver jumps out and comes right at us with the gun and stops us in the middle of the street," Justina recounted. Alex described their attacker as a masked individual wearing a hood and a sweatshirt.
The assailant ordered the couple to leave all their belongings in the car and start walking. "Leave all valuables, leave the keys empty your pockets, leave everything in the car, and start walking that way now," Alex quoted the attacker. The couple complied, but as they began walking towards Hana, they heard the car start. "Now, he's coming towards us. So we very, very quickly went from a fast walk to a sprint up this gulch," Alex said.
The couple made a split-second decision to run up the volcano and hide while the gunman pursued them. "He's yelling for us to show ourselves. 'Yeah, I'll find you. I'll find you.' And he, at some point, he counts down from, I don't know if it was 10 or I heard him at five. And at the end of it, he shot the gun off," Alex narrated. "At that point, we knew it was loaded. We knew he meant business," Justina added.
The couple's ordeal intensified when they noticed a white multi-passenger van with a taxi sign join the gunman. "They rendezvoused. They came up with some type of, they had some type of interaction, this vehicle and our rental car, and we knew at that point that this guy was in on finding us," Alex said. Justina described the overwhelming feeling of being hunted and not knowing the extent of what their pursuers would do.
As night fell, the couple hiked higher into the summit district, where temperatures often drop below freezing. By daybreak, they were unsure of who they could trust. They saw tour helicopters and men on horseback, but feared they could be aiding their attacker. Their nightmare finally ended when they managed to flag down a park ranger.
"At this point, he had a suspect in mind who fits the profile, who fits the heinous act, because he is such a menace, that's what he said," Alex said. Four days later, the Maui Police Department arrested Christopher Helmer on warrants for a separate kidnapping and terroristic threat from May, as reported by HawaiiNewsNow.
"At the time of his arrest, Helmer was operating the stolen Mustang and had a loaded firearm. Following his arrest, further investigation resulted in the recovery of additional evidence linking him to the robbery and the recovery of the Tacoma, which was found to be a stolen vehicle," the Maui Police stated. A grand jury indicted Helmer on June 21 for charges including first-degree robbery, firearm and drug offenses, along with driving a stolen vehicle. His bail has been set at $500,000, and he remains in police custody.
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