Kidnapped on Highway 1
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When I was a kid, I had a strange fear of being kidnapped. That always scared me. It always freaked me out that there might be somebody that wanted to take me and I'd never see my family again. We were headed home from a family vacation in Mexico. Family trips to Mexico have always been wonderful and we've been going for as long as I can remember.

Davini and Tyler were asleep in the back seat. For some reason, Tyler always sits behind his mom and Davini always sits behind me. They've done it their whole life. I don't know why. We were on the toll road headed north. We could see the lights of San Diego. The police car turned on their lights, the red and blue lights and siren. And I looked back and I said, crap, Deb, we're getting pulled over.

I heard sirens at the same time I felt the truck kind of jerk over to the side and I asked him, "Were you speeding? What have you done?" He said, "No, I wasn't speeding." At that point, we were probably a mile and a half as a crow flies from the border. We were so close to being home. We'd been pulled over by police before. It's never really been a big deal. So he pulled over.

The policeman walked up to the window. He didn't even get a chance to really talk to him. And he put a gun straight to my forehead right here, told me to get back in the truck. At that same exact second, another car came around and blocked us in. It happened so incredibly fast. So at that point, there was nowhere we could go. They really trapped us in. I looked in the mirror and could see probably eight, 10 guys.

There were eight to ten gunmen. There's men surrounding our truck. They were all dressed the same in a kind of a military type. Very precise in their movements. All the other guys except for that first one had their faces covered. They just had this portion of their eyes showing. They all had guns with silencers on them. They told us to put our heads down and shut up.

I remember my brother saying, "Oh God, no, please no." After being told for I don't know how many times that you're gonna die, like, there's not a lot of other options to think. In the truck, Chris had a radio that is specifically made for off-road racing. Right before they were opening the door, I grabbed the mic and I said, "Is anyone out there? We need help." And no one came back on the race radio.

There was nobody to turn to, nobody to call, nowhere to go. Once they realized that the race radio was there, they ripped it off the mount, they ripped out the wires. When all this was happening, a guy climbed into the truck on my brother's side. There were guys in the back seat with the kids with guns on them as well. And another man jumped in the driver's seat.

He tried to reach back behind me and touch them and pat their legs or rub their legs and I just kept telling him, "I love you and it's gonna be okay." The whole time I'm doing this, there's this guy with a gun in my side yelling at me to shut up and keep my head down. - This took place in November of 2007. We went down for the Baja 1000. It was Tyler's, it was gonna be his 16th birthday.

Chris and Tyler were working as part of a pit crew for the Baja 1000. Tyler started racing motorcycles when he was five. He's very adventurous. Ever since my dad would take him, he would jump in a car and help out where he could with changing tires or handing a driver a water bottle. Anything he could do to spend the day in the dirt. As a family, we have traveled to Mexico a lot. We would just go and have fun. It was just, you didn't have to care. You just...

You went down and relaxed on the beach. It was always warm. Cabo San Lucas is the very south tip of the Baja Peninsula. It's amazing. The day before we came back, we had stopped along a little spit of beach coming up the peninsula.

And probably 35 people met up with us in this deserted beach. And we all barbecued and drank beers on the beach and camped out overnight. And that was probably the most perfect day we've ever had down there. It was awesome. We got up really early in the morning to drive home. At first, we were caravanning on the way home. And those caravans get a little broken up. And we were pulling big travel trailers, so we weren't driving nearly as fast as anybody else.

The plan was to stop in another city and sleep. I'm using the cell phone and calling the hotel and confirming, "Yes, we're going to check in late. We still want that room. Please hold the room." "No problem, Mrs. Hall. Keep coming. We've got your room." When we get there, the room's gone. I really think that was the turning point. I was tired and I was like, "You know what? We're not that far from home. We're just going to keep going home." Just go forwards five hours and sleep in our own bed.

At the time it seemed like an okay idea. My dad said, "Please take it all. Leave us here. Just whatever you want, take it. Leave us here." And the guy took his gun and put it to my dad's forehead and said, "Shut up." I was so afraid that I was going to watch my dad get shot right there in front of me, six inches from where I was standing.

I could hear Chris breathing really heavily, like in through his nose and kind of shuddering out through his mouth. I could hear Tyler breathing really, really heavily, and I never heard a peep out of Davinia. Deborah had to sit up and pretend like everything was okay. I remember her crying and trying to reach back and hold Tyler's hand. Chris is the even-keeled one in our family. He kind of sets the tone for things. If he's

He turned white, gray. He looked like he was gonna be sick. And if he's scared, I'm scared. - We begged him, just please let our kids go. Just let the kids go. Debra and I didn't care what happened to us. - These are my babies. They don't need this. Just let them walk away. We're out in the middle of nowhere. My kids are not gonna hurt you. They're not gonna call anyone. Just let them go. And they didn't care. - They just laughed at us and said, "Shut up about your kids."

I think the gunmen were nervous once they discovered it was an entire family in the truck and that scared me in itself because the dynamics have changed. They're nervous too. And then he started driving and the cars followed us. And then they made a right hand turn off the toll road but not at an exit or anything and then drove up into the hills. They said they were gonna shoot us, that we were gonna die.

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When we were traveling, it was November of 2007, we weren't aware of any issues that were happening across the border that would make us question traveling on the road at night or traveling on the road alone. Mexico has become one of the most dangerous places on earth. Increase in the number of kidnappings for ransom. Drug gangs have killed more than 5,000 people. That's more than the entire-- I don't see it as the Halls' fault at all. These criminals took advantage of the family.

Being pulled over late at night in Mexico when you've been traveling all day by a group that's dressed as law enforcement, it's very intimidating. The groups think that you do have money or you do have vehicles. You know, at that point it becomes very serious and very life-threatening. The violence in Mexico has increased dramatically in the last two years. There's a battle going on. In San Diego we had probably 200 murders last year.

In Tijuana, which is next to San Diego, we're talking about a thousand murders. We're seeing targeted executions. Criminal organizations are melting human bodies in acid and they're hanging them from bridge abutments for everybody to see. Drug cartels in Mexico are getting into kidnapping for ransom and they're executing anybody who stands in their way. If you're kidnapped, you could expect to get executed.

They drove us onto a dirt road up into the mountains above Tijuana. I don't know exactly where I was because they made us keep our heads down and they stopped. They kept asking us, "Who are you? What's your name? What do you do for a living? Where's the race car? Where's all the money?" My dad told them, "I'm just a truck driver. There's no race car. I'm just a truck driver."

I think these people wanted money. I think they thought we were somebody who we weren't. They were going through the trailer, just ransacking everything. They dug for money and cell phones. I told them, you know, this is all the cash we have on us. This is our name. We're not anyone. I mean, we're just somebody's family.

I remember them rubbing down my legs to check my pockets and my pants. I remember somebody grabbing at my neck looking for any jewelry. I was absolutely worried about them being raped. Don't think I've ever felt that helpless in my life. You've got eight to ten guys with guns. I just did not want them touching my daughter. I was scared to death of that. It was creepy. I didn't want them near me. I know my dad didn't like the fact that they

were running, you know, grabbing at my legs and my neck and stuff trying to look for things. And I couldn't imagine having to watch his daughter have that happen. My only thought was to tell her I'm so sorry and to try and protect her as best I could. My mom kept asking these guys to please just leave my babies here and take what they want, just leave the kids alone. And they were mocking her.

She would say, "Please just leave my babies here." And they would be like, "Oh please, please just leave my babies here." It was cruel. As a parent in that situation, I felt like the most horrible person there is. Because there wasn't anything we could do to help the kids. Tyler was shaking and crying. He was very, very upset. He had a gun pointed at his side the entire time we were there.

I just kept trying to hold his hand, tell him that I love him. I mean, I tried to tell him it's gonna be okay, but how do you tell somebody it's gonna be okay when they have a gun in their side? Once they realized there was no race car on the trailer, left the trailer there and took us further up in the mountains. We got to the top of the mountain and they stopped again. Where they took us, really dark. Like pitch black, not be able to see your hand in front of your face, pitch black out.

These men pulled my dad and I out of the driver's side and my dad instantly just wrapped his arms around me and he hugged me and he told me he was sorry and that he loved me. And they pulled my mom and my brother out of the passenger's side. He's still breathing really heavily and I looked over and they were putting him into a ditch on his knees, pointed away from me. And there were two men with guns, one on each side and Tyler in the middle.

And I thought, "Oh my God, they're gonna shoot my baby." This is it. And I just didn't want to see that happen. Just stop for just a second. Our friend George had driven down with Chris and Tyler. The second day we were in Cabo, George said when he woke up that he'd had a bad dream. He dreamt that there were guns and somebody was killed, and he just couldn't shake this bad feeling. He said, "I just need to leave."

In retrospect, I think, "George had this dream. It was a premonition. We should have all left." When the hotel gave away our rooms, that was a sign. And we had two signs, and we ignored them both. And now look what happened. When they put Tyler in the ditch, I was physically ill. One of the gunmen placed me in the same ditch about eight feet from him.

and he kind of shoved me down into the dirt and I crawled over to where Tyler was and the guy yelled something at me and I'm like told me to stop and I'm like you know what no you're throwing us in a ditch if he's gonna kill us in a ditch I'm not gonna be eight feet from my baby he threw a sleeping bag over Tyler and I and I thought

They're gonna shoot us. This is it. They're putting the sleeping bag on us so that when they shoot us, they don't get blood on them. Because of how big my dad's truck was, we couldn't see my mom and my brother. So we rounded the back of the truck and my brother was laying face down and so was my mom and both of their bodies were covered with a sleeping bag. And right then and there, I thought they were dead.

The last thing that I remember seeing before they threw the sleeping bag over Tyler and I is Tyler's head. I crawled over and I just put my hand over his head and kind of held his head and I was whispering to him that I loved him and I was so very sorry that we got us into this and he was like, "It's okay, Mom. It's okay. I love you. It's okay."

They forced my dad and I down on the ground with my mom and my brother. Davina and I got over there as close to them as we could. As Davina got down in the ditch, I got down and tried to get on top of her as best I could to cover her body with my body. I could hear my brother crying and I could feel him shaking. We all just laid there and they threw a pillow on the back of my dad and I's head. At that point, I really thought this was it. Execution style to the back of the head, all of us laying here. We were going to die.

I told my brother that I loved him. I told my mom and dad that I loved them. It was kind of like, just wait for it. You know, is this going to hurt? Am I going to know what just happened? But it never came. It seemed like a long time and nothing had happened. And it seemed like it got real quiet. And we laid there and the truck drove away. And we laid there and they were gone. They were just gone. And after probably 10 minutes of laying there, my dad

got brave enough to stick his head up and look around and realized there was nobody around. Debra kept saying, "Keep your head down, keep your head down." And I looked around and everybody was gone. And the truck was gone. The four of us gave each other a big hug and I remember Debra and I telling the kids, "We're sorry, we're gonna get you out of here." We had no cell phone, no nothing. And we had no clue where we were. No sense of north, south, east or west. No sense of direction because of the fog. Our first reaction was to get up

get out, get away. My mom wanted to find a place to stay until daylight so we could see what we're doing, where we were going, and everybody else felt, no, we need to get out of this situation. What if they come back? Tyler was sick and we were all just so cold from being out exposed to that cold fog and air for so long.

So we wrapped the sleeping bags around Tyler and Chris just said, "Come on, we're walking. We're getting out of here." And I said, "We got to sit and listen for the ocean." I knew as long as we could find the ocean, we could find our way to help and find our way home. And we started walking. We were all in shorts because we had just come from Cabo where it was 90 degrees out.

Being the middle of November, in the middle of the night, it was about 48 degrees, I believe. There were cactus, there were trees, there were bushes, there were barbed wire fences everywhere. The rocks were wearing flip-flops and were trying to go down steep goat trail type, no trail terrain. I mean, just not something that you would ever walk on if you were wearing hiking boots.

It was just bad. We probably walked down the mountain for 45 minutes to an hour. We saw a light, a very faint light in the distance, and it was a trailer, and we could hear dogs barking. Deb said, "There's a house. I see a light." And she wanted to start walking towards the house, and I didn't think it was a good idea. And so my mom started yelling, "Help!" Somebody came out and fired two rounds in our direction.

Now we're getting shot at. You never know who's going to show up on For the Love with Jen Hatmaker. From Mel Robbins to Tig Notaro, Kate Bowler to Stanley Tucci.

I'm Jen Hatmaker, and every week, my dear friend Amy and I dive deep with incredible guests who make us laugh and cry and think a little bigger about life in the middle years. For the Love, where great stories meet unforgettable people. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts. We ducked and hit the ground, just trying to get as low as possible to get out of any potential line of fire.

God's supposed to take care of you and give you only what you can handle, and now we've got some other yahoo shooting at us. It was crazy. If you don't prepare yourself for the worst, you know, how are you going to get through it when it comes? You're not necessarily always safe when you think you are. In 2001, my freshman year of high school, there was a school shooting.

Just getting reports of shots fired at Santana High School in Santee. We've heard the three students... It sounded like fireworks just going off. I walked into class and I instantly started hearing popping noises. You see so many ambulances at the school. Someone said, "Somebody's got a gun."

i heard some shots they're doing it sounds like a shooting at santana high school we heard the shots and i saw some kid laying on the ground she was in the ninth grade when they had the shooting at the high school 14. i was really close to where the gunman was grabbed my camera started taking pictures i happened to be in a cooking class you could hear screaming and just chaos everybody was running around who is he i don't know i just wanted to

You have a whole quad full of people. You know, he fired, he killed a person in the restroom, he shot someone in the back who ran and collapsed and died in my teacher's arms. And he is still shooting. He's still shooting. He's still shooting. Okay. People were running into the classroom saying, "He's got a gun. There's somebody with a gun." And

The next hallway over from where I was, another freshman was coming out of the bathroom, just shooting. No real target, just shooting. The SWAT team came into the classroom. It was a team of three or four men. They had us one by one go out of the classroom. - Okay, where's the shooter? - He was in the boys' bathroom. - We know that there is one suspect in custody. - The shooter was Andy Williams. He was a fellow freshman.

It was a kid that said he was bullied. I didn't know she was okay until I actually saw her. I was never so glad to see her in my life. She was shaking, she was really scared. It was instant crying and hugging and just so happy to see them. I mean, he took two lives and he permanently mentally wounded a lot of people. She went from a little girl that was innocent to

Seemed like she grew up to an adult right then and there. I think the school shooting forced me to grow up a lot faster than most teenagers grow up. We heard some dogs barking and Deb said, "There's dogs, there's a house, I see a light." I'm in flip-flops, my mom's in flip-flops. Everybody's in sandals. It's very slippery. My legs were getting cut up by the brush and we kept falling.

Tyler absolutely stood up and shared the burden. He definitely looked after and watched out for his mom and his sister as best he could. We crossed the toll road, not realizing it was the toll road, got into this housing area and we yelled for help and we rang bells and we banged on doors and nobody would help us. It was around 3 in the morning and my doorbell was ringing so I got up and I went through the window.

When I opened the curtain, I saw four people standing there, father, mother, and the two children, teenagers. They looked very scared. Something told me I should open the door, and I opened the door. And she came out, and she said, get in here right now. And she pulled us in, and she took us into her home. And...

She was a lifesaver, literally. An amazing woman. She gave me her jacket. She said, "What can I do for you?" I said, "Can we use your bathroom when we're all just... Do you have water?" And she gave us her water, and she said, "You can use my bathroom." She said, "It doesn't flush, but I'll carry the buckets of water to flush the toilet for you." I noticed they had some scratches on their knees and some on their arms.

So I offered to clean them up and give them some medicine. I offered to call the police so they could get some more help. She said that she was going to call the police. And we all said, no, don't call the police. The police are who had us. Don't call the police. She said, no, no, this isn't, I'm going to call. I know the men in my department. It's going to be okay. And she called the police department in her little voice.

and two men came in a pickup truck. And they put Davinia and I in front with the driver and put Chris and Tyler in the back with the other policemen. And we did not want to be separated. And my mom told the woman, "If you don't hear from us in a few hours, please call my dad," so my grandpa. And the woman said, "You'll be fine."

"These, they're gonna take you home. These police are gonna take you home." And she wrote down their names, their truck number, their license plate number, every detail about them. And when they were driving us to the border, they were going away that I've never been to the border. And that, I think that made my mom and I both very nervous. And then the officer that was driving, he shook his head and he looked down and said, "You need to go home. It's not safe for you in here."

And so they rushed us up to the border and they got out of the car and both of the officers hugged my entire family and we thanked them as much as we could and they said go. When we walked up to the first customs agent we told them who we were, what had happened to us. We were sweaty, bruised, just a mess. And we said we don't have any ID or anything, we need a bathroom, we need a phone, we need water.

and said there's a bathroom in front of McDonald's across the street. He didn't seem to really care. The San Diego Police Department has like a little satellite trailer thing right at the border. We talked to the police. They would only take the stolen purses and wallets report. And I said, well, what about the brand new truck that doesn't have 8,000 miles on it and the three-month-old camping trailer?

And, oh, I don't know, being kidnapped at gunpoint by the Mexican police. And they said, "We don't, that's not our issue. We don't care about that. We're here to take the stolen property report." And that was the extent of the police report they could take. We left, they let us leave. We went to the McDonald's like they told us. We didn't know where else to go. And we called my cousin and we called him collect and he came to pick us up.

The crime that occurred to the family down in Mexico and they reach out to United States law enforcement to assist, it sometimes becomes very difficult for us because we have no authority in Mexico. When we were pulled over, in my heart, I honestly believe that it was the Mexican police or possibly the federales. At the time we were under the impression they were police because they pulled us over like they were police and they were very well organized. Truly we didn't know.

There have been several reports of kidnapping cells or what we call the criminal element that do use Mexican law enforcement uniforms, also Mexican military uniforms to further their criminal enterprises. At the time I had no idea who they were and I still don't know who these people are. The bandits were probably after the expected race car that they thought was in the trailer.

Anybody down in Mexico gets accosted by what they think are law enforcement person or military personnel and then they're held at gunpoint, they're placed in a ditch face down and guns held at them, at their heads. They're extremely lucky to be alive. I never felt it was over until I was home, in my own home. We were just so, so glad to be home. I remember getting home, just being thrilled to be home, happy to be around our dogs.

but still worried because they had our driver's license, they had our address, they knew who we were. After we got home from Mexico, we had four people sleeping in our bed for a while. Once we did get home, as a family, we went to go see a therapist. Sleep? No, we don't sleep anymore. A couple hours here, a couple hours there. We don't get a peaceful night's sleep. I'd sleep maybe an hour to a night.

pretty much ran on energy drinks. - Nightmares all the time. - I absolutely have nightmares. I honestly think that the men with the guns are in our house and I will wake up screaming and I don't even know what's happening. - Tyler kind of went into his own little locked himself away kind of thing.

Tyler wanted nothing to do with seeing a therapist, didn't like it. I would like to talk to Tyler about it. He's not comfortable with it. Tyler hates to discuss anything that happened down in Mexico. I think that Tyler is trying the hardest to ignore what happened. If you ignore it, maybe it'll just go away. The therapist and my parents both felt that I should go see a therapist on my own based off the fact that

this is not my first traumatic experience. Someone said somebody's got a gun. I know exactly what I was wearing and it's been eight years and that sticks in my head every day. I think with any traumatic event your personality changes. I don't know whether mine was for the good or for the worse. I think that

Davinia was able to deal with the Mexico incident much better due to the shooting at Santana. She knows that she can be exposed to something that traumatic and come through okay on the other side. I think that it's really hard on Chris. I felt responsible for bringing him to Mexico and I felt like I put him in that situation. Even if I had one gun, there were still eight to ten guys with guns. No matter how I

look at this in different directions, the outcome would have been way worse than what it was. When he and I do discuss what happened, I say, "Had you been, you know, Mr. I'm macho dad, you know, rescuing my family, they probably would have killed you and killed us." I guess what I did was right because my family's alive and nobody was hurt.

but in my mind it sure seems like I could have done something different. We're all home and we're all together and we're all safe and I really credit him with that. I'm at work. This person is obviously, you know, an official with the State Department calling me. He said, "I regret to inform you that we found Chris's body in

Tijuana, your first reaction is to go, "Oh my God." They were sure it was Chris because this man had his driver's license in his pocket. I hadn't talked to him in probably two and a half hours. I had to get a hold of Chris and I called him at home. And he was actually meeting with someone. He said, "I'm in a meeting. Can I call you right back?"

"Well, absolutely. Call me back. Don't call me back. I just needed to hear your voice." I called them back, leave a message, "You have the wrong person. This is not my husband. Please don't call me back." The next day I get a call from someone else within the State Department. They left me a voicemail and they said, "Mrs. Hall, we're so sorry for your loss. We'd really like to help you make arrangements to get your husband's body back across the border." I'm like, "Are you freaking kidding me with this?"

Don't they talk to each other? Third day, I get another call from the same person. Mrs. Hall, we understand that this is a stressful time. Can we help you make arrangements to get him back? And I was just, by this point, I'm not even frustrated anymore. I'm beyond that. And I called and left her a message. I said, you know what? I never liked him. Keep him. I don't care what you do with the body. They never called me back.

I think things are getting better. It's getting back to normal. I don't know if it'll ever be normal, but it's absolutely getting better. Our experience has brought us together. As time goes on, hopefully this will heal itself. We're a couple. My parents being younger parents are a lot of fun. I think as a family we're definitely adventurers. We like to get out and see what there is to see. We bought a boat.

We all go to the river together. That's our new place to go, I guess. We just had our 25th anniversary. We took our kids to Hawaii for their first time. And we had a lot of fun. I don't think there's anything that's going to take the place of Mexico just because it's such a different world down there. Even Tyler still talks about the happy times. Still talks about his favorite burrito shop. There were so many times

that were good that completely outweigh the bad. - And no, we've lost Mexico and we won't go back and just leave it at that. - It's just gonna have to be something that was once upon a time for us. - Nova Cave is now streaming on Paramount+. - You're gonna love this.

It's an adrenaline rush of fun. This is the best. And a bloody good time. Looking forward to it. Nova K, rated R, now streaming on Paramount+. 911, say it's emergency. Yes.

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