From Putting Up a Fight
Her wedding was just six weeks away, and Judith Schmidt, 19, could talk of little else. “We’re going to Crescent City for our honeymoon,” she confided excitedly to co-worker Theodore Lidgett one Friday night last February. The two worked in sales at Orchard Supply Hardware in Redding, California. Lidgett, 59, a grandfather of two, smiled and told Schmidt, “That’s a one-time deal. Take lots of pictures.” In the parking lot, they said good night, and Schmidt unlocked her silver Mercury Tracer and got in. But before she could close the door, a dark form appeared at the driver’s side. It was a hooded man in a black ski mask and gloves.Schmidt’s heartbeat quickened. She wondered if one of her brother’s friends was playing a prank. Then the man, six feet tall and 160 pounds, pulled out a ten-inch serrated survival knife. “Get over,” he ordered. “Give me the keys.”
“Can I get out?” said Schmidt, sprawled across the passenger seat.
“No!” He closed the driver’s door.
A slender five-foot-eight, Schmidt had blonde hair swept up in a knot, with a pen still stuck there from jotting notes at work. As a girl, she’d learned from her mother: Never go with a guy against your will. Always scream. Always put up a fight.
She quickly popped open the passenger door and dropped the keys on the asphalt. That would keep the man from taking the car. Terrified, she was relieved to see that her friend Lidgett was still in the next parking space. “Ted!” she screamed. “Ted!”
Seated behind the wheel of his Ford Tempo, Lidgett saw a glint of light flash inside Schmidt’s car. A masked man was holding a knife blade at Schmidt’s neck. The hardware salesman jumped out of his car.
The attacker glared at him through the open passenger door. “Get the [expletive] away or I’ll cut her [expletive] throat,” he yelled.
“Oh, no you won’t!” Lidgett shouted back.
At the store, he was known for his fund of knowledge about hardware: Fixtures, locks, tools, you name it—if a customer had a fix-it problem, Ted Lidgett could usually solve it. But the problem now was a knife, a girl and a slasher.
He turned and groped in his car for his steel thermos, to use as a cudgel. But it was stuck inside his lunch pail. No time to get it loose.
Whipping around, Lidgett faced the hooded man again. Again, the attacker screamed, “Get away!” then pulled the knife away from the young woman’s throat and held it up to her face. Slashing at her cheek, he made a small cut below her right eye.
"He Saved My Life"
Lidgett lunged, grabbing the man’s knife hand and pushing it toward the windshield. Seizing Schmidt by her jacket, he strained to pull her out of the car. But the attacker hung on tight. He sliced her cheek again, then stuck a gloved hand in her mouth to keep her from screaming and stabbed her hard in the lower left leg. When Lidgett finally got her free, the young woman slumped on the ground.But the slasher wasn’t finished. Schmidt scrambled to her feet, and Lidgett pushed her behind him in the narrow gap between the two vehicles. The masked man leaped out of the car. Facing him head-on, Lidgett noticed something odd: A cable—the kind used to lock up a bicycle—was tucked under each of the guy’s sleeves. The ends peeked out from his cuffs.
Raising both hands over his head, he stabbed wildly at Lidgett. But the older man had sharp reflexes. He held up an arm to shield himself, then threw his full weight onto the open car door, slamming it onto the slasher, who let out a surprised gasp of pain. Before he could wriggle free, Lidgett slammed the door again, then a third time.
By now, other employees inside had heard the fighting. Darting out from behind the car door, the man took off. The store’s assistant manager jumped in his pickup to chase him. But the attacker ran behind the hardware store and disappeared into some thick bushes.
Ten days later, police arrested Joseph William Duncan, 27, and charged him with attempted kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. A police dog had tracked the assailant’s scent to a rose bed near the scene. There, an officer found a black backpack containing a knife, gloves, a black neoprene mask and bicycle cable—items similar to those identified by witnesses.
Duncan told police he was infatuated with Judith Schmidt and had asked her out several times. Every time, she’d turned him down. Although Schmidt was unable to identify her attacker because of his disguise, she acknowledged that she knew Duncan. They had met in a chemistry class at Shasta College. Once, she recalled, he’d gotten angry when she refused to go out with him, yelling and punching a concrete pillar.
According to the police report, Duncan had told people that he planned to kidnap a Shasta student he called Judith so that she would have to marry him. The day after the attempted kidnapping, he reportedly asked friends if they’d heard about the incident. One noted that Duncan seemed to know details that weren’t in the newspaper. She called the police.
Duncan has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He told police he was at a movie that night.
As for Schmidt, she needed seven stitches in her leg. Fortunately, the cuts on her face weren’t that deep. Of Lidgett, she says, “He saved my life. I couldn’t have gotten away by myself.”
Six weeks after the attack, while Lidgett and his wife beamed from a pew on the bride’s side, Schmidt walked down the aisle of Faith Assembly Church with her new husband. The bride’s hair was swept up under a snow-white veil, her face picture-perfect. The scars didn’t even show.