Rutgers Student Disappears After Taking Ride From Man Who Allegedly Threatened Him in the Past
“Wortman’s family told CBS News that the same driver threatened him with a knife over the summer.”
This story is nuts. Never get into a car with creepy people!
The New York Post reports:
Rutgers University student vanishes after hitching ride with acquaintance who terrorized him: family
A Rutgers University student missing for over two weeks was last seen hitching a ride with an acquaintance who his family claimed was arrested for threatening him with a knife over the summer.
Mortimer “Morty” Wortman IV, a 22-year-old senior at Rutgers University, was last seen on surveillance footage in the Regional Day School parking lot in Jackson, NJ, on the evening of Nov. 21, where his car was later found, News 12 New Jersey reported.
In the footage, Wortman enters a vehicle and the pair drives off.
Wortman’s family told CBS News that the same driver threatened him with a knife over the summer.
“He was chasing my son somewhere around town in Point Pleasant. The public called, and he got arrested. There was no bail. They let him out,” his father, Mortimer Wortman III, told the outlet.
The family claimed that the same man was the one who reported Wortman missing on Nov. 22 and are pushing for police to re-interview him.
“I think my little brother is — he likes to see the best in people, and I’m sure he could have been coerced or persuaded to, you know, get in the vehicle,” Wortman’s brother, Ivan Marks, told the outlet.
News 12 New Jersey identified the man as Adam Zalouk, who had his hearing for the alleged knife-wielding case postponed at the Ocean County Courthouse on Monday.
Zalouk was supposed to face charges relating to a July incident where he allegedly threatened Wortman with a knife, rammed the rear of his car, and vandalized it, the outlet reported. The judge, though, postponed the hearing without explanation.
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Comments
Mortimer “Morty” Wortman IV
Geez, this guy was bound to be abducted. Or found duct-taped naked to a tree.
The “postponed without explanation” part is a bit disturbing, too.
This is also why you learn self-defense – the first rule of which is “put your head on a swivel and stay out of sketchy situations with sketchy people.”
WHY would any person with a functioning brain get into a car and ride with a person who had threatened them in the past ?
The only reason I can think of past involvement, such as drug deals or someone from your own sketchy past that you want buried.
This doesn’t pass the smell test. No one would get in a car with someone that had chased them around with a knife in the past.
Might, if they were looking at a gun barrel.
Or they were involved in something problematic. Drug involvement, perhaps.