Missouri trucker pleads guilty in Alabama kidnap case

MOBILE, Ala. (AP) -- A Missouri truck driver has pleaded guilty to federal kidnapping charges accusing him of abducting and repeatedly raping an Alabama woman found nude, bound and beaten in his parked 18-wheeler.

Roy Scott Stillwell, 47, of Hartville, Mo., was arrested Dec. 11 at a Baldwin County truck stop on Alabama 59, near Interstate 10, after the woman was rescued.

With a guilty plea Thursday, Stillwell avoided an additional charge related to the woman's injuries. Prosecutors said Stillwell faces up to 14 years in prison for kidnapping. Investigators still are trying to determine if Stillwell was involved in similar crimes in other states.

The Alabama woman was rescued by two female truck drivers who heard a horn blowing from a parked truck at a Loxley truck stop. They found a woman screaming inside the cab and saw that she was tied and naked.

The woman, who had been abducted in Montgomery, was bound and repeatedly raped during a multistate drive across the Southeast that lasted several days, prosecutors said.

In his written plea agreement, Stillwell said he met the victim at a truck stop in Montgomery. After she declined an invitation to go with him to North Carolina, Stillwell let the woman use his cell phone and then punched her in the face.

Stillwell's statement said he pulled the woman by her hair and put her inside his truck, where he tied her hands with zip ties, cut off her clothes with a knife and choked her until she passed out. Later, Stillwell tied her hands and legs with a rope.

Stillwell said he beat the woman and kept her tied to the truck as they drove through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Alabama.

When arrested by Baldwin County sheriff's deputies, Stillwell initially suggested the situation was entirely consensual.

"What is this about?" he asked, according to the plea agreement. "It is not against the law to have sex with someone who likes to be tied up."

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Information from: Press-Register, http://www.al.com/mobileregister