A 22-year-old Oregon man kidnapped his 87-year-old grandmother at knife point and forced her to drive for nearly 12 hours, the Marion County Sheriff's Office said Sunday.
Robert White of Salem was charged Sunday with unlawful possession of methamphetamine, kidnapping, menacing, criminal mischief and violating a protective order in the incident Saturday night, the sheriff's office said in a statement.
The statement said that White's family had been "struggling to help" with his meth use and that his grandmother, who wasn't identified, had briefly placed her grandson in a hotel.
On Saturday night, the statement says, "she had to inform him that the money had run out and he needed to leave the hotel."
When his grandmother picked him up, White climbed into the backseat of her car, then "placed a knife to [her] throat and told her to drive," the statement says. "Driving through the night while her grandson smoked methamphetamine and rambled about the police following him for the past nine months, relief finally came when Mr. White called 911 at about 8 a.m."
The statement doesn't say what White told the dispatcher, but using GPS, the sheriff's office tracked his grandmother's vehicle to a road east of downtown Salem. White was taken into custody without incident, the statement notes, and his grandmother, "although tired ... was not harmed during the near 12 hour ordeal."
