UPDATED: Kidnapping Victim Found in East Ridge

Missouri Man Arrested for False Imprisonment

Officers responded to a BOLO early Monday morning for a gray Ford F150 with Missouri registration plates. The driver was wanted in connection with a kidnapping and aggravated domestic assault in Poplar Bluff Missouri.

Police located the vehicle and it’s owner, Chris Luecke, at the Fairfield Inn on Mack Smith Road. Luecke was in the company of his victim who immediately requested assistance from officers. She was transported to Parkridge East for treatment of injuries she sustained from the assault in Missouri. The victim had been assaulted and held against her will.

Lucke was taken into custody for false imprisonment by East Ridge officers while Poplar Bluff detectives sought warrants for aggravated burglary, aggravated assault and kidnapping. He was transported to Silverdale without incident. He is scheduled to appear in East Ridge Municipal Court on Tuesday, Sept. 13.

ERPD Chief Stan Allen said Friday that the victim was found in a t-shirt, shorts and no shoes. He said there was every indication that the suspect was taking the victim to his brother’s property in Blue Ridge, Georgia. Chief Allen said the woman would probably have been killed.

“There’s no doubt that our officers saved (the victim’s) life,” Chief Allen said at a ceremony at the Fire and Police Services Center honoring first responders on the occasion of the anniversary of 911.

Chief Allen commended five ERPD officers for their actions: David Myrick, Scott Darwin, Sam Roistcher, Jeff Crowe and Greg Beck.

About Dick Cook

Dick Cook has lived in East Ridge since the Kennedy Administration when his parents bought a house on Marietta Street. Dick graduated from ERHS in 1976 before going on to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he studied Political Science. Dick worked for the Chattanooga Free-Press and the Chattanooga Times Free Press for 22 years. Free-Press Sports Editor Roy Exum plucked him out of production in 1989 and gave him a job as a sports reporter. Dick covered everything from prep sports to the whitewater events on the Ocoee River for the 1996 Olympics. When Chattanooga's two paper's merged, he became the Crime Reporter covering both the Chattanooga Police and Fire Departments. He was among reporters who were honored by the Associated Press for the TFP's coverage of the 2002 fog-shrouded crash on I-75 in Catoosa County, Dick and his wife, Cathy, live on Marlboro Avenue where they are seen frequently chasing around their three grandsons.