A daring rescue by the Louisiana family of Bethany Arceneaux resulted in the killing of Bethany’s abductor and the successful rescue of Bethany. On Wednesday, Bethany was abducted by her boyfriend and father of her child. Police was initially unable to find and rescue the woman, but her family wasn’t ready to give up the search.
A few hours after Marcus Arceneaux was pictured carrying his bloodied niece Bethany to safety yesterday, the young woman’s family have revealed how they tracked down and took on her kidnapper in a deadly confrontation.
Two days after the 29-year-old mother was abducted by her ex-boyfriend Scott Thomas, her family found her being held hostage in an abandoned Louisiana house.
In the violent confrontation that followed, Miss Arceneaux was stabbed by Thomas who was then apparently shot dead as her rescuers took justice into their own hands.
‘We kicked doors down. It was like a movie unfolding,’ Miss Arceneaux’s brother, Ryan, told the Advertiser. ‘If we would have waited, she would have been dead.’
Ryan was part of a search party made up of family and friends who were helping police try to find Miss Arceneaux after Thomas, the father of her two-year-old son, grabbed her on Wednesday evening.
At around noon on Friday the group were investigating an abandoned house, barely visible through the sugar cane fields surrounding it.
The house, on Anderson Road, was close to where Thomas had ditched his car on Wednesday night.
Marcus Arceneaux, who helped rescue his niece, told KLFY 10: ‘Everyone came running from the building and when I ran that way I saw my son was coming with Bethany. He had discovered her and got her out of that house.’
Kaylyn Alfred, another of the victim’s brothers, said they heard screams for help as they entered the desolate building.
As the search party confronted Thomas, who was the subject of a restraining order, he allegedly began to harm Miss Arceneaux.
In the tussle that followed Thomas was shot and Marcus Arceneaux was able to grab his niece and carry her to safety.
‘She’s shook up, she’s sliced up, but she’s alright, Ryan said. His sister was believed to have been stabbed but is recovering in hospital and has been reunited with her son.
Captain Kip Justice of the Lafayette Parish Police Department confirmed that 29-year-old Thomas died as a result of injuries received in the confrontation.
