Frustrated Lover Could Face Life in Prison WICHITA (CN) - A Texas man is charged with kidnapping his ex-girlfriend with a BB gun, handcuffing her and driving across three states to reach a Kansas bed and breakfast, where he hoped to persuade her to marry him. 
 
 Joseph Andrew DeRusse, 24, of Austin, was charged with kidnapping in a Feb. 3 federal indictment . 
 
 Police arrested DeRusse, who is unemployed and has no stable residence, on Jan. 23 near Newton, Kan., after the woman's father alerted Texas police that his 24-year-old daughter and her car were missing, according to a Jan. 6 federal criminal complaint, with an accompanying affidavit from an FBI agent. 
 
 The father logged into his daughter's GPS program and saw that her car had traveled though Texas and Oklahoma and was in Kansas. 
 
 DeRusse and the woman, identified as H.M.M. in the affidavit, were romantically involved for two months but "cooled things down" in November 2014 and hadn't seen one another since the day after Christmas, according to the affidavit. 
 
 Investigators said that on Jan. 22, DeRusse Texted H.M.M. on a "pay-as-you-go" cell phone, pretending to be her friend "Kaitlin," urging H.M.M. to meet for a "surprise." After H.M.M. grew wary and canceled the meeting, DeRusse showed up at an Austin apartment complex where she was visiting her sister, and allegedly forced her into her car at gunpoint with a BB gun modified to look like a real handgun. 
 
 "The newer BB guns look realistic anyway," Newton police Lt. Scott Powell told Courthouse News Tuesday. DeRusse had blacked out the orange lines on the BB gun to make the gun look like a black, semiautomatic pistol, Powell said. 
 
 "The victim certainly thought it was real," the lieutenant said. 
 
 According to the affidavit, DeRusse handcuffed H.M.M., placed a "sleep mask" over her eyes and adorned her with a "neck pillow" so she would appear to be a napping passenger. 
 
 Newton Police Sgt. Jason Thompson stopped DeRusse when he spotted the Nissan Sentra near Newton, about 120 miles from Narka, near the Kansas-Nebraska border, where DeRusse had prepaid for three weeks stay at a bed and breakfast, according to the affidavit. 
 
 DeRusse allegedly told the officer that the car belonged to his "fiancée," who was in the vehicle. Initially, H.M.M. told Thompson that she was with DeRusse willingly but then spoke with the officer privately and told him that DeRusse had "kidnapped her with a gun, handcuffed her, blindfolded her, and was driving her to a "secluded location somewhere in Kansas," according to the affidavit. 
 
 After driving nearly 400 miles, DeRusse removed the sleep mask and handcuffs during a stop in Oklahoma City. H.M.M. considered trying to escape but "feared for her life," the affidavit states. 
 
 The FBI agent wrote that DeRusse eventually admitted to Thompson that he had forced H.M.M. into the car with a gun and handcuffed and blindfolded her. He allegedly told another officer that when Thompson pulled him over, he thought about brandishing the gun so that Thompson would shoot him because he "did not want to live without H.M.M." 
 
 DeRusse said he was taking the woman to the bed and breakfast because he believed that "after spending three weeks together, he would convince her to marry him," according to the affidavit. 
 
 DeRusse had even bought an engagement ring, which police found in the car. 
 
 DeRusse is in custody pending trial. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison. ||||| Related Coverage Austin kidnapping suspect arrested in Kansas 
 
 WICHITA, Kan. (KXAN) — A 24-year-old Austin man was charged with kidnapping after being arrested Friday in South Central Kansas. The charges against Joseph Andrew DeRusse were handed down Monday in federal court in Wichita, Kansas. 
 
 The woman said DeRusse abducted her at gunpoint and then blindfolded and handcuffed her. It wasn’t until later that she learned the weapon was a BB gun, which police described as “very realistic and had been modified to look like an actual hand gun.” 
 
 DeRusse intended to force the woman to spend three weeks with him at a bed and breakfast in rural Narka, Kansas, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. It was during that time he intended to convince her to marry him. Police also found an engagement ring. 
 
 Austin police were first alerted to the kidnapping about 6 p.m. Thursday after a family member called the Hutto Police Department concerned about the woman’s well-being. 
 
 The location of the vehicle was being tracked with GPS on the woman’s phone by her father and being relayed to Austin police. Austin officials then passed that information along to the Newton, Kansas police department. An officer located the vehicle as it was coming through town about 4:45 a.m. Friday and stopped the car a few miles later along Interstate 135. 
 
 Newton is about 30 miles north of Wichita, Kansas. 
 
 The woman said DeRusse removed the handcuffs and blindfold when they were in Oklahoma. She said the vehicle stopped a couple of times but she was afraid to get out of car, believing DeRusse was armed. 
 
 If convicted, DeRusse faces a maximum penalty of life in federal prison.
– Picture it: Your ex-boyfriend kidnaps you at BB-gun-point, handcuffs you, and drives you from Texas to a bed and breakfast in Kansas, where he plans to spend three weeks with you on a passionate getaway that ends with him convincing you to marry him. If that doesn't sound like the perfect proposal to you, well, a woman identified as HMM in court documents didn't find it all that romantic either. She and Joseph Andrew DeRusse, 24, dated for just two months when things started "cooling down" between them in November, Courthouse News reports, citing court documents. They hadn't seen each other since just after Christmas when on Jan. 22 DeRusse allegedly kidnapped HMM at her sister's Austin apartment complex, forcing her into a car with a BB gun he'd made to look real; police described it as "very realistic," KXAN reports. During their three-state trek, DeRusse not only allegedly handcuffed HMM but also set her up with a neck pillow and a sleep mask so that she would look like a willing passenger in his car simply taking a nap, and didn't remove them for 400 miles. HMM's father reported his daughter and her car missing, and her GPS revealed that the car was in Kansas. Police stopped DeRusse on Jan. 23 before he reached the B&B, and he told officers HMM was his "fiancee" and they were driving her car. During a private conversation with an officer, though, she revealed what really happened. DeRusse eventually confessed and told officers about his proposal plan; they found an engagement ring in the car. He was arrested and has been charged with kidnapping in federal court; he faces life in prison. (This proposal also went very, very wrong.)