A soldier who lives in Killeen is behind bars in the Bell County Jail after police say he was caught in New Mexico trying to take his wife to Washington State after kidnapping her.
John James Nichols has been charged with aggravated kidnapping after being stopped in Torrence County, NM.
Back on June 13, just before 2 p.m., a Killeen PD officer was called to the 2000 block of Lava Ln. about a woman who had been taken against her will. According to the affidavit, a friend told the officer that John Nichols had kidnapped his wife.
The affidavit says John Nichols had returned from Korea earlier in the month, and during that time, his wife had moved out. In written statements, others reported Nichols had slapped his wife before and threatened to kill her, himself, and their dog.
A previous police report also showed someone had confronted Nichols about assaulting his wife, and he had displayed a rifle and threatened to "choke the **** out of" him.
The day of the alleged kidnapping, the person who reported it to police had received a text from Nichols' wife that said they were on Interstate 40 headed toward New Mexico. According to the affidavit, Nichols' wife had also sounded scared on the phone and said she didn't want to be with him.
A Torrence County Sheriff's Department detective contacted Killeen PD at 5:15 p.m. on June 13, and said they had stopped the vehicle with Nichols and his wife inside. The affidavit says authorities found a razor blade, a machete, a cross bow, a tactical flashlight, and a gun magazine inside the vehicle.
Nichols had reportedly been headed to Washington State.
In a written statement, Nichols' wife said that on June 13, between 2:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m., John Nichols had "grabbed her by the throat and forced her into the passenger seat", before forcing her into the home in the 2000 block of Lava Ln. She then says Nichols forced her to have sex with him and said she had to leave the state with him.
She also said that he told her if she contacted police, he would kill her. As the officer pulled the two over in New Mexico, Nichols is also accused of threatening her if she didn't "act like everything was okay."
