Rookie Dispatcher Helps Rescue Kidnap Victim

With just five months of experience, a Charleston County (SC) sheriff’s dispatcher carefully questioned an hysterical 911 caller who yelled she had been locked in the trunk of a car by her estranged boyfriend, and was traveling down Highway 17. Dispatcher Susan Zepka was hired last July and completed training just last month, said deputy comm center director Allyson Burrell. Despite her short experience, Zepka calmed the woman down, and the victim was then able to describe the vehicle and narrow down its location. At one point the boyfriend stopped the car, opened the trunk and confronted the woman, all captured on the logging tape. Sheriff’s deputies followed Zepka’s location information about the vehicle to a truck stop, where they arrested the boyfriend, and learned that he’d let the victim out earlier up the road. Listen to the 911 call here.