Dad Arrested in Mother-Child Kidnap

June 17, 2008— -- Authorities arrested the Florida man whose wife told police that he abducted her and their 4-year-old son at a grocery store Sunday evening.

The suspect was taken into custody at a private home in Blacksburg, Va., without incident and the boy, whose abduction triggered an Amber Alert, is safe, the Lexington County Sheriff's Office announced in a release Monday evening.

Rashell Renee Pennell was found locked inside a gas station bathroom in Lexington, S.C., early Monday morning. The woman told investigators that 45-year-old Robert William Custer, her former boyfriend and the father of her child, put a handkerchief to her nose and mouth Sunday evening and forced her into his conversion van in Ocala, Fla., at an arranged meeting to pick up their son at the end of a visitation.

"The father walked up to the vehicle, had a handkerchief or some type of cloth, and put it to the mother's mouth and nose, causing her to pass out," Lexington County Sheriff James Metts said at a news conference Monday.

When Pennell awoke, she told police, she was tied up in the back of the moving van. Their son, 4-year-old Colin Nathaniel Custer, was also in the car. Robert Custer is considered armed and dangerous.

Pennell escaped from the van 400 miles north of Ocala and told a gas station employee to call 911 before locking herself in the bathroom. Custer went into the gas station and asked where his former girlfriend had gone, but when he learned that police had been notified, he fled in the van with the boy, Metts said.

"When we found (Pennell), she was cowering in fear," Metts said, adding that she had bruises on her legs and abrasions on her wrists.

Pennell was treated at a local hospital and released. She told investigators that she did not see an actual gun in the van, but saw the outline of a weapon tucked into Custer's belt. She told police she did see a box of ammunition. Custer was armed at the time of his arrest.

"I think the child could be in a lot of danger," Metts said before the arrest was made. "[Custer] seems to be very unstable at this particular point in time."

The man's van was recovered near the North Carolina-Virginia state border. Authorities have not yet formally charged Custer.