IRS Agent Rescues Woman From Abductor

A man who stuffed a woman into a trash bin in North Hollywood during an abduction and possible robbery attempt was scared off by an Internal Revenue Service agent who heard the victim’s screams and shot at her assailant, Los Angeles police said.

Marcia Freedline, 44, of Van Nuys, was bruised and frightened but otherwise uninjured after the 8:15 p.m. incident Thursday at Hesby Drive and Lankershim Boulevard, Detective Mike Sullivan said. The assailant and an accomplice escaped.

Police said John Everett, a 43-year-old agent with the IRS criminal investigation division in Los Angeles, may have prevented Freedline from being seriously injured.

“I feel he saved my life,” said Freedline. “This was so strange. I think they were up to more than just a robbery.”

Everett was conducting surveillance work in the area when he heard screams coming from the parking lot of a Security Pacific bank on Lankershim, Sullivan said. He ran to the lot and saw that a man had dropped a woman into a trash bin and was closing the lid.

Citing the “delicate” nature of the IRS investigation he was conducting, Everett declined through spokeswoman Carole Levitzky to comment on the shooting. “We are very pleased he was at the scene and was able to assist,” Levitzky said.

Freedline said she had been making a deposit at the bank’s automated teller machine when she was attacked from behind.

“He never said a word,” Freedline said. “He never asked for my wallet or money. He just came up behind me--a big moose of a guy--and grabbed me. He dragged me and carried me away. I was just screaming, and then he dropped me in the bin.

“I lifted the lid and tried to get out a few times, but he was still there, and he pushed me back in.”

While running to the bin, which was about 60 feet from the teller machine, Everett identified himself as a law officer, and the assailant ran to a nearby car where another man was behind the wheel. As the car, which had a towel over its license plate, sped away, Everett fired his handgun five times at it, police said.

It did not appear that either of the suspects was struck by bullets, police said. The car, described by police as an older, possibly Japanese-made hatchback with burgundy paint, has not been located.

Although the incident is being investigated by robbery detectives, police said they are unsure of the attacker’s intent.

“What was so strange about it was that the guy never said, ‘Give me your money,’ ” Sullivan said. “He just carried her off and threw her into the trash. We don’t really know what he was doing.”