Amish Woman Used A Weed Whacker To Scare Off Man With Knife & Handcuffs In Attempted Kidnapping

We now know more about what the person who (allegedly) attempted to kidnap a 23-year-old Amish woman Wednesday did.

Learning the details, this had to be a very frightening experience. And the woman’s response may have saved her a lot of trauma and pain, and even her life. It turns out she used a weed whacker to scare off a man carrying a knife and handcuffs at her home.

Earlier this week we learned of this attempted abduction in Lancaster County near Atglen, Pennsylvania, later described as an “assault” by State Police.

Police have now charged a New Jersey man with trying to kidnap her. Pennsylvania State Police identified the suspect as Junior Davila-Moran, 26, of Hamilton Township, New Jersey. He was arrested Friday morning at his home in New Jersey.

So here we had someone who traveled all the way from another state – at least an 80 mile trip – to prey on an innocent Amish person (allegedly). Was he just out for an Amish woman, and headed to the biggest community, then turned off the road and started driving around until he found one? Or is this someone who had ties to, or knew something about the area already?

Those are questions we don’t yet have answers for. But an affidavit filed by State Police now lays out what happened on Wednesday, and how the Amish woman’s reaction likely saved her.

What Police Say Happened

According to PennLive’s reporting on the affidavit, the woman was weed whacking near her driveway on Creek Road in Sadsbury Township in Lancaster County on Wednesday afternoon when she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see a man she had never seen before. From PennLive:

He was carrying a long, serrated knife with a black handle and a pair of handcuffs, which he demanded that she allow him to put on her, police said. If she cooperated, he told her everything would be OK.

Instead, the woman revved the weed whacker and took a step toward the man while screaming, police said.

The man shrugged and took off, sprinting behind the wooden barn on her property on Creek Road in Sadsbury Township.

After the man ran, the woman went to a neighbor’s house to call police. The woman later told troopers she believed the man was trying to kidnap her, but that she had not seen any vehicle. She described him as about 5 feet, 5 to 7 inches tall, with short black hair and a goatee.

Trail Camera And Truck Decals Led Police To Suspect

The woman’s neighbors gave police trail camera footage showing a dark-colored Chevrolet pickup parked in the area from 4:09 to 4:22 p.m. Wednesday. This may have been the image we saw in the original reporting (posted again below). According to the affidavit, the truck had a New Jersey license plate, with an American flag and Monster Energy drink decals on its back window.

Police then ran license plate reader searches in the area and found a matching truck registered to Davila-Moran’s father. Davila-Moran’s PennDOT photo matched the woman’s description.

When police showed her eight photos, she picked out Davila-Moran, telling them, “This photograph makes me tremble.”

Hamilton Township police searched Davila-Moran’s home Friday morning and arrested him. According to police, his father’s Chevy pickup was parked outside, with a pair of handcuffs inside. Yuck.

Davila-Moran faces two felony kidnapping charges and six misdemeanors, including false imprisonment, simple assault, possession of an instrument of a crime, and terroristic threats.

It’s reasonable to assume based on the charges and the reported attempt to handcuff the woman, that this guy had kidnapping, and likely worse things, in mind. You don’t want to imagine what might have happened next if this brave Amish woman had not responded like she did.

Nonresistance And What This Woman Did

I have to make a note about the idea of the Amish being a nonresistant people and what we know happened in this case. Here, the woman wielded a weed whacker and made noise in an attempt to scare the alleged attacker off and perhaps to get attention.

Though the Amish teach against using force, for example, being against war, in practice it’s not so clear-cut, and I believe some Amish people would certainly defend themselves or their families personally, to some extent, rather than just submit to violence by evil-doers.

That said, I don’t know that you’d even count what she did as “using force”. She may have wielded the weed whacker in a threatening manner, but did not strike him with it.

But even if she had, I doubt there’d be many in her community that would ever fault her for it. And we’ve seen this before in at least one similar example, when a 20-year-old Amish woman chased off an attacker who was attempting to abduct a 16-year-old Amish girl in Illinois.

The Same Age As Linda Stoltzfoos Was

And as noted in the last post, this is the same Amish community where 18-year-old Linda Stoltzfoos was abducted while walking home from church in 2020, and later murdered.

The woman in this case is 23 years old, so she would have been essentially the same age as Linda when her case happened. Perhaps she even knew Linda; certainly her story is well-known to her, as it is to just about anyone of a certain age in her community.

And her being a young female of the same age at the time, I can only surmise it was particularly scary and would make an even bigger impact than it might have, say, on a middle-aged man in the community. She said that the man’s image made her “tremble,” and I just hope she’ll be able to overcome any trauma this close call has left behind. Prayers for her, and hopefully this case resolves with a just outcome.