A man was arrested outside an Olive Garden in New Hampshire after a woman said he was holding her hostage and that he had forced her to marry him and conducted a “satanic ritual” on her, police said.
Officers were dispatched to the Olive Garden in Newington, New Hampshire, on Sunday after a woman was reported as being held hostage by a man with a gun, a copy of the arrest affidavit says.
The woman’s mother tracked her cellphone to that location and notified Pennsylvania State Police, who contacted the police in Newington.
Police made contact in the parking lot with the woman, who was in tears and had cigarette burns on her legs, the affidavit says.
Officers then spoke with Daniel Ouellet, 47, who said that the woman was his wife and that they were out to dinner. Asked why the woman was crying, Ouellet said her mother “was attempting to force her to join a religious cult back in Pennsylvania, and she was fed up with dealing with it,” the affidavit says.
Meanwhile, the affidavit says, the woman got into the car with another officer, causing Ouellet to become concerned about her detention.
Later, the woman told police that she was in New Milford, Pennsylvania, when Ouellet reached out to her threatening that she must go to him or he would find her and harm her and her family.
She said that she got to New Hampshire last week and that Ouellet began to threaten her with a gun and forced her to go to town hall to get married, the affidavit said.
She told police that she obliged and that Ouellet kept her cellphone while they were together.
After the marriage paperwork was signed, she said, she was held at his trailer against her will, according to the affidavit. He told her that if she were to leave, he would harm her family.
She said that on Saturday, after Ouellet forced her at gunpoint to drive around, he performed what she called a “satanic ritual” by grabbing her wrist and slicing her hand open with a box cutter.
Officers found a copy of “The Satanic Bible” in Ouellet’s car, the affidavit says.
He still had her phone when they got to the Olive Garden in Newington. She saw the police cruisers pull up outside the restaurant, prompting her to rush outside to meet officers and get help, the affidavit said.
Officers filed an emergency restraining order to keep Ouellet away from her, the affidavit said, adding that she told police she did not want to be with him.
Ouellet faces charges of domestic violence, obstructing the report of a crime or injury and possession of a deadly weapon.
In a court appearance Monday, Ouellet denied the allegations and was ordered held in preventive detention, WMUR-TV of Manchester, New Hampshire, reported. It was unclear whether he had legal representation.
