People have short memories. Police do a decent job when a gringo dies or gets murdered. On other matters not so much.
Home from a nightmare: Couple describes being trapped in Dominican Republic
BEAVERTON, Ore. — A Beaverton couple has returned home from what they call a nightmare in the Dominican Republic.
They say they were trapped in the country for six months.
In an exclusive interview with KATU News,
John Ekman said Sunday the entire ordeal probably could've ended much sooner if he'd been willing to bribe public officials in the developing country, but he refused because he said he committed no crime.
Ekman's girlfriend, Lori Breeden, snapped a photo of him kissing the carpet at Portland International Airport Thursday after they'd finally returned home.
"I feel incredibly lucky to live in the United States of America," he said.
Ekman, a retired electrician, traveled to the Dominican Republic last November with Breeden.
It was their third trip to the country in about a year and they said it's certainly their last.
"We didn't have choice," said Breeden. "Everybody else was making decisions for us and we were voiceless."
About a week after they arrived in the country, Ekman said he was driving a rental car with Breeden late at night down a busy freeway when they hit a motorcycle that was lying in the middle of the street.
"The motorcycle just appeared out of nowhere, like, instantly," Ekman said. "I had zero time to react."
Ekman said the driver of that motorcycle was also in the street, but they didn't hit him and they believe he was already dead.
Ekman, who speaks fluent Spanish, said witnesses "were saying that this man had been hit by a truck."
The couple said they pulled off to the side of the road immediately but when police arrived, they arrested Ekman.
"They threw me in a jail that was like a 16' by 20' concrete hole with couple of gritty alcoves with wet garbage," Ekman said. "I was thrown in with five other people."
He got out in a couple of days but the government took his passport. They gave it back three weeks later but put a hold on it.
https://katu.com/news/local/home-fr...describes-being-trapped-in-dominican-republic
"I had my passport but I was not able to leave the country," Ekman said.
Although police could find no evidence of blood or tissue on the rental car, Ekman said he was forced to stay in the country while he got the runaround from officers and the prosecutor.
"One delay after the other," Ekman said, "and 10 days always turned into 20 and a week turns into a month."
Ekman said after the government brought in a new prosecutor, the U.S. Embassy got more deeply involved and he finally got the OK to leave.
"Even at the airport they were checking and re-checking my papers," Ekman said.
Breeden, who works as a psychotherapist, said she was able to Skype with patients while she was there but she lost two-thirds of her clients.
"It would ruin another person" who had a more typical nine to five job with two weeks' vacation, Ekman said.
The couple said they're still willing to travel abroad in the future, but if they visit any developing countries, they're not going to drive.
KATU reached out to the government of the Dominican Republic several times for this story, starting in November, and so far it has not responded.
