sourceA traumatized young woman just wants her puppy back after she says she was lured into a van, then driven to a secluded area where she was abandoned at the side of a dark road.
Jenie, who asked that her last name not be published out of fear for her safety, said she was walking seven-month-old Tikka after having a few drinks when two guys in a grey Pontiac Montana minivan started chatting her up in Little India just after 11 p.m. on Saturday.
“They wanted to pet her,” the 24-year-old Beaches waitress recalled through tears Monday of the incident that played out in front of Chandan Fashion at Gerrard St. E. and Ashdale Ave. “We just started chatting.”
The two young men, who told her they were Pakistani, seemed like “nice guys” and suggested she come with them to pick up a friend so they could all go back to Little India to hang out and maybe grab some food, Jenie said. Her boyfriend was due home from work soon so he could join them, she thought.
“I had had a couple drinks. My judgment wasn’t clear and it was stupid,” she said.
Jenie got in the minivan and the trio pulled away.
The conversation remained pleasant for the first little while.
“They were talking about religion and lots of different things, what we liked to do,” Jenie said. “And then it just turned. It just turned.”
The driver began talking about how they had money and Jenie should have sex with them. The front-seat passenger “was more like a follower,” Jenie said.
“But they were feeding off each other. They knew I was scared. I was ready to fight them.”
As the van kept moving, Jenie didn’t know what the men had planned.
“‘I’m not a prostitute. Let me out. I’m not going to do this,’” she recalled telling them.
Jenie estimated it was about 30 minutes after they started driving that they reached a dark ravine in a heavily wooded area.
One of the young men climbed into the back seat, opened the door and threw Jenie onto the ground, she said. When the van took off, Tikka — a white Maltese-Yorkshire terrier with a pink, heart-shaped diamond on a sparkly pink collar — was still inside.
Jenie walked along the dark path after the van for about 15 minutes until she was at the Don Valley Parkway and saw a sign for Taylor Creek Park. She used her cellphone to call her boyfriend, who in turn called 911.
With the investigation now in the hands of 55 Division officers, a tearful Jenie said she just wants her puppy back.
“I made a stupid mistake. I trust people too easily,” she said. “I feel so bad, poor thing, you know, and it’s all my fault.”
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