A man was arrested on a charge of kidnapping after allegedly kidnapping his former girlfriend and torturing her with a hot screwdriver for over a month, police in New York said.
Now, 34-year-old Anthony Matthews of Brooklyn, has been sentenced to serve 25 years to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree kidnapping and first-degree assault.
According to the police investigation, Matthews and the 29-year-old victim, who was not identified, maintained a relationship that was abusive at times.
One day, Matthews picked up the victim from her father’s home in Peekskill, and brought her to his apartment.
Once in the apartment, Matthews tied her up with extension cords and telephone wires, repeatedly beat her with a piece of wood and continuously threatened to kill her.
About two weeks into the ordeal, the victim attempted to escape.
In response, the defendant beat her up, broke her teeth by shoving a gun into her mouth, burned her inner thighs with a hot iron and mutilated her body with a screwdriver that he heated with a lighter.
Throughout the month of captivity, the victim’s family did not know where she was.
After a month, Matthews left the victim by the door of his mother’s apartment in Bedford-Stuyvesant, rang the bell and fled.
He instructed the victim to lie and say that she prostituted herself and was attacked by a man she met on Craigslist. The victim was taken to the Woodhull Hospital in septic shock due to a serious infection.
She also suffered fractured ribs, spinal damage, lacerated liver, fractured nose, burns all over her body and open wounds that exposed bones.