Eric Glaze Cleveland man arrested after woman who attended drug party at his home wakes up in a freezer with frostbite before escaping home.
An Ohio man faces kidnapping charges after a woman escaped from a freezer at a Cleveland-area home where police say she ‘may’ have been held for days.
The East Cleveland Police Department said Eric Glaze, 41, was arrested Tuesday on charges of kidnapping and attempted murder after the victim – exhibiting instances of frostbite – escaped from the home earlier in the day. Authorities were first alerted to an issue in the area at 10 a.m. after the woman crashed her car in Cleveland, allegedly as she was making her escape.
East Cleveland Police Capt. Scott Gardner told FOX8 the woman identified Glaze as an acquaintance and said she attended a party at the home on Sunday.
‘She came over here on her own volition and essentially, she was administered some sort of narcotic, according to her,’ Gardner told the media outlet. ‘She’s not exactly certain of the events that happened in-between, but she woke up and she was in a freezer that was running.’
The woman, who was not restrained, said she was able to push open the lid of the freezer and escape Tuesday morning, getting into her car and driving off — before getting into an accident.
‘She seems to think that they were, that they had drugged her to the capacity that [they thought] she was dead, is what she was indicating to us, and that they were essentially trying to get rid of her,’ Gardner told FOX8.
The woman said she knew Glaze before she attended a party at the home Sunday night.
The woman, who suffered multiple injuries including severe frostbite, was taken to an area hospital.
Did woman overdose during drugs party?
Authorities believe the home may have been operating as a group home, but the city’s building department said it was not registered, Cleveland.com reported.
Authorities are still trying to determine why the woman – whose identity was not publicly revealed – was placed in the freezer. She speculated that she might have been placed there because other partygoers thought she overdosed and died.
Following the woman ‘escaping’, neighbors said a SWAT team arrived shortly after at the home to ‘kick the door in.’
‘Why didn’t you just call 911, have the ambulance come and check her out? First, then they would have determined whether she took something, had something, you know what I’m saying, before you just say ‘Oh she’s dead,” neighbor Pat Phoeson told FOX8.
It remained unclear what narcotic the woman had been ‘under the influence’ and whether she had taken the substance of her own willing accord.
Neighbors said Tuesday afternoon that they did not know Glaze or anyone from the group home very well. The home’s previous occupant died several years ago, neighbors said.
The incident remains under investigation. Glaze is expected to be arraigned Thursday in East Cleveland Municipal Court.
