Transcript of Nowhere to Run

Last time on This Doesn't Happen to People Like Me.

It was around close to 5: 00 PM, and my mom was leaving work.

My grandma was having issues with her headlights. One thing about her is she was not very tech savvy. She decided to pull over.

She drives a car where the headlights typically turn automatically. Someone else had used the car.

You think that when someone pulls over to help you, that there's no ill intent.

And that's when her nightmare started.

Welcome to this doesn't happen to people Like Me, a new 10-part series by the creators of Sword and Scale. If you like the show and feel so inclined, please go to Apple Podcast or Spotify, subscribe, rate, and review. I'm your host, Mike Boudet. This series was written and produced by Michael Stabiel. In the early evening of November ninth, 2021, 77-year-old Tina Lohman found herself stranded on the side of a quiet road in Quincy, Illinois. It had started to rain, and the sun was going down, but Tina's headlights weren't working. Tina was hopeful that a kind stranger would pull over and help her. About an hour or so later, a patrol sergeant at the Adams County Sheriff's office was dispatched to a nearby residence.

Sergeant Lohmier, were you working on the evening of November ninth, 2021? Yes. That evening, about 6: 30 in the evening, did a call come in where you responded to 4,300 Bottom Road here in Quincy. Yes. When you arrived at the residence of 4,300 Biden Road that evening, did you go inside the house? Yes. Before you went inside the house, did you notice anything about the front area of that house as far as any markings The front of the house had a bit of a circle drive, and there was a grassy area in the center.

There were some tire marks on the grassy area in the center.

Fresh tire marks were dug into the yard of the residence. The patrol sergeant also noticed that the garage to the home was open. As he walked into the garage and began making entry to the house itself, the sergeant saw something else.

When you went inside, did you notice anything about the door leading from the garage into the house?

Yeah. The door from the garage into the house, there were footprints on the door. It had been kicked in. The door hinge or the latch was broken.

It was clear to the police officer that the door had recently been kicked open. The sergeant pulled his gun from the holster and continued beyond the broken door. He made his way inside the house.

Sergeant Lohmier, when you responded that evening, you were one of the first officers on scene, correct?

Yes. Deputy Bowden and I arrived at about the same time.

When you went into the residence further, did you observe an individual inside of that residence?

Yes.

Tell me what you observed about that individual.

There was a older female sitting on the floor with her legs off to the side. She appeared distraught.

When you saw this older female, did you know who that was at that point? No.

The Patrol sergeant arrived at the residence on this particular night because earlier that evening, a 911 call had been made by a man named Timothy Schmidt.

Tim Schmidt lived on basically... It's called North Bottom Road. When you live in Quincy and you understand the layout of the town, most of the city is up on a bluff away from the river. However, Bottom Road is literally a road that you could walk across the road and you could go dip your toes in the Mississippi River. I mean, He was right next to the river.

By 2021, Tim Schmidt had lived in Quincy, Illinois, for over three decades, but he didn't live alone. Tim shared his home with his wife.

My name is Timothy G. Schmidt.

Mr. Schmidt, how old are you?

I'm 66 years old.

Where do you work?

I own American Builders Supply.

Mr. Schmidt, were you married at one point?

Yes. Who were you married to? Christine Lohman.

How long were you and Ms. Lohman married?

A little over two years.

Were you together longer than that?

Yes, 36 years.

You were together for 36 years and married for two years.

Yes.

Tim Schmidt was Tina Lohman's husband. They had lived together for many years, but had only somewhat recently tied the knot. They also owned and operated a successful business together.

Did Tina work with you at American Builder Supply?

Yes, she did.

You guys ran that business together?

Yes.

For the 38 years that you guys were together?

She was there not quite 38 years. She was there, I think she came on in 1993. But quite a while. Not quite. Not quite a while. Okay.

For Tim, November ninth, 2021, was a pretty typical Tuesday. He woke up that morning and went to work just like he did on most weekdays. But when the sun set, Tim's Tuesday took a very dark turn.

I want to talk to you about the night of November ninth. Where did you go after work? What time did you leave for?

I left work sometime after five o'clock, and I went to a farm at home It was just before deer season, and I like to hunt deer, so I went over looking to see if there was anything I wanted to get before season opened up.

You went home after that? Yes. Got home around 6: 00 PM, give or take?

Yes.

When Tim arrived at home that night, he immediately noticed some bizarre things around his house.

When you got home around 6: 00 PM, did you notice anything unusual about your house?

I noticed that the garage door was open. There were some items on the floor in the garage. The car was gone. There were some tire marks in the yard.

After seeing his home in such an unusual state, Tim became concerned. The most troubling thing he noticed was that his wife's car wasn't in the garage or the driveway.

Why did the fact that there wasn't a car in the garage and the garage door being open at 6: 00 PM at night trouble you concerned you?

Well, my wife drove the car, the Toyota Avalon, that would normally be parked there. Of course, the car was gone, and then I noticed the door was kicked open.

We'll get to that in a minute.

Tim stepped out of his car and made his way towards the garage. Once there, he noticed something else. Several of his belongings were missing.

Specifically, did you have a chainsaw and a hedge trimmer?

Yes.

Was the chainsaw and hedge trimmer in that garage when you left that morning?

Yes.

When you came that night at 6: 00 PM, was the chainsaw and the hedge trimmer in that garage?

No.

Tim walked further into the garage and noticed the door leading into his home had been kicked open. Tim continued to walk inside the house. When he arrived at the doorway of his living room, he stopped and was shocked by what he saw.

When you came inside, you walked through that damaged door, did you see someone sitting on the floor?

I saw my wife sitting on the floor in tears. She was sitting on a... It was a blanket or a quilt.

Did you notice anything about that quilt?

There was blood on it.

Did you also notice a spray can and a knife on the floor?

Yes.

You recognize that I'm holding a knife? Yes.

That is the railroad spike that was turned into a knife that was on the floor in the house.

Tim found his wife, 77-year-old Tina Lohman, sitting on the living room floor. She was crying and bleeding. Tim went to her and asked what happened.

Tell me about that. You said she was in tears. Was she crying?

She was crying, and she told me that they raped her.

As Tim knelt on the floor with his wife, Tina Lohman recounted the horrific ordeal that she had just experienced. She told her husband that she had been carjacked, kidnapped, beaten, and raped. On the evening of November ninth, 2021, Timothy Schmidt returned to his home in Quincy, Illinois, after a long day of work. After he arrived, Tim found his wife, Tina Lohman, on their living room floor. Tina was distraught, crying and bleeding.

Tim Schmidt was about 63 years old. He had run a business called American Builders Supply. He had been friends with Tina Lohman for more than three decades, but they had only just recently gotten married a couple of years earlier.

Tim and Tina were very close, and they knew each other very well. As long-time sweethearts, they enjoyed going out to dinner, taking vacations together, and running their shared business. They also enjoyed watching Star Trek together.

Can you tell me about that pin? How do you recognize that pin?

If anybody has ever watched Star Trek before...

I've seen Star Trek.

Well, we bought that at the Star Trek display at the Las Vegas Hilton, and I don't remember what year it was.

The shape on that is a Star Trek uniform.

Yes.

It's the badge that the officers wear on their uniform?

Yes.

And you and Tina were Star Trek fans?

We were Star Trek fans.

Tim and Tina were happy. They had a good life. But on November ninth, something unimaginably horrific happened that turned their lives upside down.

Tim Schmidt left the family business, the American Builder Supply, at around five o'clock that evening and drove to Farm and Home Supply, and he went there to go look for equipment for deer hunting season. Then he drove to his home on North Bottom Road, probably about a 15-minute drive, and he saw that the garage door was open when he arrived. His wife's car was missing, and there were wheel tracks from a car in the front lawn. He checked around his home. He saw that there were some items missing from the garage. Then he saw that the door from the garage leading into the house had been kicked in. There were shoe prints left on the door, and that's when he went inside and found his wife, and she was in tears. Then he went on to ask her, Basically, hey, what happened?

When Tim discovered his distraught wife on the floor of their living room, he knelt beside her and asked what happened. Tina responded. With tears running down her face, she said, simply, They raped me.

After you saw those things that we saw, you heard Tina say that they raped me. In her condition, she was crying. She appeared to be emotional to you?

Yes, she did.

Sobbing?

Yes.

Did she tell you that she was worried they were going to come back?

Yes, she did.

Because of that, what did you do?

I went into the bedroom and I got a handgun.

Tina's husband, Tim Schmidt, arrived home. He found Tina on the floor crying and bleeding, crying that she'd been raped, bleeding from her body. Tim, her husband, got a gun because Tina He was so terrified the defendant and his accomplice were going to come back. And he called 911.

After Tim called for help, a patrol sergeant and other officers were dispatched to Tim and Tina's home.

Tell us what the call was that came in.

The call came in as a woman carjacking Henry.

Tim had been told that help was on the way, and he quickly returned to his wife. Tina spoke to Tim and further explained some of what happened to her.

Tim asked Tina to tell him what had happened, and she relived that nightmare again as she told him how she had been violated, how she had been robbed, how she had been left bloody and bruised.

And did she Did she tell you what had happened to her?

She said they raped me.

Did she tell you how the rape started?

She told me that she was driving home on Cooks Lane, and she got to the front or in Cooks Lane, and the lights were not on in the car. And she stopped there at the stop sign, and a man came and went to help her to turn the lights on, and he got in the car with her and drove off with her.

In the car?

Yes, in the car.

Did she want to go with him?

No.

As Tina was telling the story, the police began to arrive on the scene, and Tina had to explain things all over again.

Sergeant Lohmier, as she was telling all these things, you said at the beginning that you know she was distraught. Was she still distraught as she was telling you these things?

Yes, very distraught. So when I saw where she was on the floor, there was some crying, but it was also, I think, what I've seen in other people, a shock. Just disbelief, bewildrement. When I would talk to her and ask her what happened, there was a pain for remembering it and some hesitation. It was a little bit disjointed as far as how the conversation went. I think that was a reflection of how emotional she was just utter confusion, I think, and disbelief is what I read in her face, and pain, I think, of remembering what happened.

Tina spoke with police and explained that earlier that evening. She was parked on the out of the road because her headlights weren't working. A truck pulled up behind Tina with two people inside. A man stepped out of the truck and offered to help, but the man didn't help Tina. Instead, he threatened her.

And then learned that this was going to be a situation where he told her to get over in the passenger seat with a threat of violence, and he took the car.

Before Tina could make sense of what was happening, she was becoming this man's hostage. She was abducted in her own car. Tina later recounted these same events several more times. She told her daughter, Ilsa, What happened?

When the male first came into the car, he had somehow pushed her over or got her out of the car, taking her bags and everything out of her car and throwing them. And then he wanted money. And my mother said, The bag that you just threw out had the money in it. And I think they retrieved that.

With Tina in the passenger seat of her car, the man drove to an isolated area. Meanwhile, the man's accomplice followed them in the truck they had been driving.

After he had taken her car, what did she say that he did?

She said that he began rubbing her crotch. I think she said he he, he demanded her jewelry first, so he took all the jewelry she had on herself, and then her cell phone, and she said he threw the cell phone out the window. She said while this was a occurring. He, at times, was rubbing her crotch over her clothes. She was very, very scared.

Eventually, Tina, the man and the accomplice arrived at an especially isolated area known as the North Bottoms, and parked. Once there, the assault and the robbery began.

Then they went down to an enclosed area where at this point, the other person that was in the vehicle that he was driving had pulled up next to them, and he had stopped the car, and she opened the door. The other person grabbed the jewelry off of my mother.

And did she tell you while they were in that area, the North Bottoms, what the man made her do to her top?

Yes.

What did Tina say that the man made her do to her top?

She said that he made her take her top off.

And did she tell you that he made her take her top off so that he could touch her breasts?

Yes.

After this man did that to her, did Tina say that the man forced her to perform oral sex on him?

Yes.

Did Did he tell you what she thought was going to happen to her?

She told me that she thought that they were going to kill her.

Tina was terrified, and she was certain that if she didn't find a way out of this horrific nightmare, she would end up becoming a murder victim. So Tina came up with a plan.

She's thinking at this point that they're going to kill her because she's not sure why they're in a dark spot and why the vehicle's off. So in a panic, she instructs them, Hey, I have more money and more jewelry at my house, which is nearby.

She said, Please don't kill me. I'll do anything. I have a lot of money. I have jewelry. You can have it all if you just go to my house. And so they drove to her house.

Tina's plan seemed to work. She convinced the man and his accomplice to take Tina home where she could give them more money and the story. But the man didn't accept this offer without giving Tina a warning.

At some point, did she also tell you that the male had made a threat to her about what would happen if her husband was home?

He said that if your husband's there, I'm going to kill you both.

At this point, Tina did not know that her husband, Tim Schmidt, had decided to go shopping for hunting supplies that evening. As far as she knew, her husband could have at their home, and she might have been leading two killers back to their house. But Tina had no other options. The best she could hope for was that her husband could use one of his guns to scare off these criminals and save her. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Tim Schmidt wasn't home when Tina and the two criminals arrived there. Nobody was there. And this This nightmare for Tina didn't just continue. It got much, much worse. On November ninth, 2021, 77-year-old Tina Lohman was abducted in her car by a young man and a female accomplice. While Tina was stranded on the side of the road, the man forced his way into her car and drove off with Tina as the accomplice followed them. They arrived in an isolated area, and the man turned the car off. He stole Tina's money and jewelry and forced her to perform oral sex on him. Tina was terrified and assumed that the man was going to kill her. So she convinced him to take her home, where she had even more money and more jewelry.

Tina thought if she got to the house, she might be able to defend herself a little bit better because she knew that there were loaded firearms in her house. Obviously, her husband was an avid deer hunter.

Again, Tina didn't know if her husband was home or not. And The man even warned Tina that they better not find anyone when they got there.

Schmidt testified that his wife told him that the man who was in the car told her that if your husband's there, I'm going to kill you both.

As the man drove toward Tina's home, Tina sat in the passenger seat where she remained terrified. She could have been bringing two killers to her husband's doorstep. During this drive, the man continued to assault Tina.

As the defendant drove Tina's car back toward the house as they were being followed by the accomplice, the defendant reached over, grabbing Tina and seeing his penis into her mouth.

As they were driving, the man accidentally made a wrong turn, which allowed his female accomplice to reach Tina's home first. When the man pulled onto their lawn, the female accomplice was already ransacking in the garage.

When they got up to the house, they were arguing the female had made it to the house first, and she was taking things out of the garage. And then the male who was driving my mother's car at this point had got out and was arguing with the female. And at that time, my mother got out of the car and locked the door behind her and went to go look for a gun.

Tina found an opening to safety. The man and his accomplice began shouting at each and Tina used this distraction. She ran as fast as she could into her home and locked the door behind her.

Tina then told you that he went to the house?

Yes.

And when they got to the house, what did Tina say happened in the arrived?

She said that the male and there was a female there, that they got into an argument.

And during the argument, Tina was able to get away?

Tina went into the house, and she locked the door.

Tina had escaped her abductors. She was inside her own home, safe for the time being. But Tina knew that safety wouldn't last long. Tina knew that she had to defend herself.

She went into the bedroom on the east side of the house, went to look for the handgun.

Frantically, Tina ran to her husband's night stand where he normally kept his handgun. But there was a problem. Tim's handgun wasn't there.

But the handgun, I had moved from the night stand because we had grandchildren up there, and I was afraid one of those grandchildren Children are going to get a hold of that gun. So I put it up high where they couldn't get to it. She couldn't find the gun. She couldn't find the gun.

As Tina searched for her handgun, the criminals forced their way into the house. The man kicked open the door and quickly began searching for Tina. Tragically, he found her.

When they arrived at Tina's house, Tina was able to get away. She was able to run inside, lock the door while the defendant and the woman with him, his accomplice, were in the garage. But the defendant wasn't done. He wasn't going to let Tina get away. He kicked in the door to her house, breaking down the door, and the nightmare for Tina continued.

The nightmare for Tina didn't only continue. It escalated. It got worse and worse. By the end, Tina was left on her living room floor, bloody and broken. By the end, Tina's nightmare had become one of the most horrific and brutal crimes ever committed in the city of Quincy, Illinois. Next time on this Doesn't Happen to People like me.

We're getting my son ready for bed, and she called me really hysterical. I couldn't really understand what she was saying. So I told her, I was like, I need you to calm down and walk me through what you're saying. And she just said that my grandmother had been raped at her house and that she was going to take her to the hospital.

Specifically, those individuals showed up in a white Toyota Avalon. Is that correct? Correct. Was there video surveillance at the gas station?

Yes. One minute, they would be nice to her and tell her that she's going to be okay, and the next minute, they're kicking her. Then the next minute, they're consoling her. Then the next minute, they're raping her. She was very thrown off by their behavior.

They took her to a remote place, and she knew that they were probably going to kill her there.

She felt that they were going to kill her. She wanted to be at her home, so we didn't have to look for her.