A Texas woman is safe on Wednesday after she was seen in a haunting surveillance video, half-dressed and dragging wrist restraints as she rang doorbells for help.
The video, captured by a homeowner's Ring doorbell camera, traveled across social media after it was posted by the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office. The woman was knocking on doors around 3 a.m. on Aug. 24, but then vanished. Deputies went door to door, and asked the public for information. But no one knew who she was, and she didn't match any reported missing persons.
On Wednesday, Montgomery County Lt. Scott Spencer told reporters that the woman had been identified, and she was safe with family members. But, he said, she had been the victim of an abusive boyfriend who apparently went on to kill himself.
On Tuesday, sheriff's deputies were dispatched to a home in the area after receiving information that a man was threatening to kill himself. When they arrived, there was no answer at the door and they forced entry. Inside, they found a 49-year-old man dead of a single gunshot wound. Investigators believe it was self-inflicted.
The man left a note at the scene in which he referenced his girlfriend, Spencer added, and investigators found out he had been living in the home with a 32-year-old woman. She wasn't there, but deputies confirmed that she was the woman in the surveillance video and that she was safe with family members elsewhere in the state.
As of Wednesday afternoon, investigators hadn't yet sat down with her to hear more about what happened, but based on the video as well as the suicide note, they believe she was the victim of domestic violence, Spencer said.
"There's some issues obviously with the video surveillance, of why she was wearing those restraints and the circumstances around it," he said. "We only have one side of the story right now."