Edina Man Detained for Holding Online Date Captive in Car

A 32-year-old Edina man is due in court after he allegedly held a woman against her will in his car on Interstate 94.

The man picked up a 19-year-old woman he met on an online dating site in her hometown of Whitehall, Wis., and had planned to take her to the Mall of America.

“On the way to Mall of America, after leaving the Osseo area, he changed his mind and said, ‘Let’s just go to my place and watch movies instead,’” said Sgt. Mike Mayer of the Eau Claire County Sheriff's Office. “She disagreed with it and demanded to get out of the vehicle.”

The woman told police that he ignored her request, so she used the excuse of having to go to the bathroom. He pulled over to a gas station restroom near Elk Mound, Wis., according to the Pioneer Press, where she called police.

The Wisconsin state patrol monitored the highway from Eau Claire to Hudson, watching for the Edina man’s Chevrolet Equinox.

When state patrol stopped the car, she was unharmed, and the man was taken in custody and then released with a late August court date.

The Eau Claire County police sergeant stressed that the incident was not a kidnapping.