Thread: A terrified mom and a bumbling kidnapper (Illegal)

Star-Ledger Staff

Karen Maffucci said goodbye to her husband as he left for work that morning. She got in some exercise, expecting nothing less than a perfectly typical day.

Just across the driveway from Maffucci's Bernardsville home, hidden in an aging wooden shed, Edgar del Cid-Perez swigged from a whiskey bottle and nursed a grudge.

The 34-year-old laborer, an illegal immigrant from Guatemala, had been let go four months earlier from the landscaping business owned by Maffucci's husband, David, and now he wanted money. Del Cid-Perez had a loaded .32-caliber revolver, a knife, duct tape and a plan. Advertisement

It would fail spectacularly, but not before instilling terror in Maffucci and her family. A week after the kidnapping and Maffucci's daring escape, the 44-year-old mother of three and del Cid-Perez both spoke of that morning, she from the office of her lawyer, he from the Somerset County Jail in Somerville.

Del Cid-Perez, short and dark-haired, portrayed himself in an interview yesterday as something of a bumbling first-timer in crime, saying he didn't mean to hurt Maffucci and that he ultimately planned to release her. He also expressed regret over the incident.

"I want them to forgive me, if possible," he said in his native Spanish.

David Maffucci, who joined his wife yesterday, couldn't say whether forgiveness was possible. Karen Maffucci said she remains furious.

"Of course we're angry," she said. "I mean, this was the most horrific thing that anybody can do to you. He took me out of my house, tied me up and I (didn't) know what I was going to do. He wanted to take me away from my family."

After spending all night in the shed, del Cid-Perez entered the couple's home through an unlocked garage door the morning of Nov. 30. David Maffucci and Karen Maffucci's personal trainer had just left the home.

Del Cid-Perez bound the woman with duct tape and held her inside a barn storage closet two miles from her home. Maffucci escaped by sawing her bonds against a piece of wood.

Authorities said del Cid-Perez asked for $1 million in ransom. Del Cid-Perez denied that yesterday.

"I never asked for that," he said, insisting he wanted only $1,300 he claimed David Maffucci owed him in back pay.

David Maffucci, an hour before the jailhouse interview, confirmed he laid off del Cid-Perez after a drought this year slowed business. Maffucci did not mention the lost wages and said he did not remember how he came to hire del Cid-Perez, who worked for the landscaper less than two months.

"He was just a worker to me," the husband said.

The couple's Morristown lawyer, Jeffrey Advokat, said afterward he did not know about the lost wages.

Del Cid-Perez, charged with first-degree kidnapping and two weapons counts, has been held on $250,000 bail.

In the jailhouse interview, he said that while he needed the money to send back to his wife and five children in Guatemala, he recognizes the kidnapping was a mistake.

"Sometimes a person makes mistakes, and (especially) when you're under the influence of alcohol," he said.

Del Cid-Perez shrugged his shoulders when asked how Maffucci could escape.

"I did not do a good job tying those tapes," he said. "I am no professional."

Maffucci said del Cid-Perez, masked and armed with a gun, struck her as she walked down the stairs that morning.

She said she slumped to the floor and didn't initially fight her abductor.

"I'll give you what you want. I'll give you anything," she remembered telling him.

"Shut up! Stop talking," she said he replied in English.

Maffucci said del Cid-Perez announced he wanted money and tied her with duct tape.

By putting up some resistance, she said, she managed to retain some "wiggle room" that would later aid in her escape. With her mouth, arms and legs bound, Karen Maffucci said del Cid-Perez forced her to "shuffle" to her Volvo SUV.

He made her lie in the back of the vehicle, where Maffucci said she "popped" up several times, hoping someone outside would see her while her abductor drove. She said she kept track for most of the two-mile ride to a barn on Hardscrabble Road, where del Cid-Perez left her inside a storage closet to seek his ransom.

Alone, she wrestled and cut her bonds with a wooden plank in about 90 minutes. Once free, Maffucci ran to the roadside, flagged down a motorist and contacted police.

Del Cid-Perez, unaware Maffucci was free, used her cell phone he found inside her SUV to call her husband and demand his money. Two earlier calls on the phone led police to a friend who gave up del Cid-Perez. He was arrested in an apartment he shared with almost a dozen other immigrants in Bernardsville, police said.

"He was blessed with stupidity," said Maffucci, grateful over her captor's undoing.

Del Cid-Perez said he had second thoughts about the kidnapping.

"I was going to let her go. Even that afternoon I was considering it," he said.

He said he never broke the law until crossing into the United States from Mexico. Del Cid-Perez also said he knew his deportation, and jail time if convicted, were inevitable.

"That is irreversible," he said.

He faces 20 years in prison if convicted.

dang,personal trainer's, $1 million in ransom's I need to start a landscaping business.