A sixth person has been arrested in connection to the January kidnapping of a 23-year-old Niceville woman.
Thomas Samuel Bright of Crestview was arrested Thursday evening and charged with kidnapping to inflict bodily harm. The 30-year-old is just one of a string of people arrested for the Jan. 27 kidnapping.
Others arrested were 22-year-old Brittany Plitt and 23-year-olds Heather Sutton, Bertina Krider and Shannon Yeary of Fort Walton Beach, and Destin resident 28-year-old Chase Stewart.
According to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office, Sutton and Plitt picked up the Niceville woman at Circle K on Racetrack Road and brought her to a Hollywood Boulevard residence. Once at the home, the woman was bound, gagged and beaten.
During the kidnapping, the woman told deputies she was driven all over Okaloosa County. She said she was beaten, bound, burned with cigarettes, choked, had her teeth pulled out with pliers, and had a rag placed in her mouth while water was poured on her face, according to Bright’s arrest report.
The woman said she was told by her kidnappers that she would be killed and dumped on the side of the road, according to an Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office press release.
Early on Jan. 28, the woman was taken by Sutton and Plitt to Bright’s home on Butler Circle. She had a pillow case on her head the entire time, but said a man put a chain saw in front of her face as a way to terrorize her. Sutton told Bright the woman had been kidnapped because she stole money from her.
The torture was their way of getting her to confess to the theft of $2,000, according to the arrest report.
The woman said she stayed at the home for several hours until she was once again taken to another home.
One day after the woman’s kidnapping, deputies were able to track down Plitt’s truck at Stewart’s home on Calhoun Drive in Destin.
Bright was arrested and charged with kidnapping because of his knowledge that the woman was being held against her will.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Angel McCurdy at 850-315-4432 or amccurdy@nwfdailynews.com. Follow her on Twitter @AngelMnwfdn.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview man sixth person charged in January kidnapping