Scott County man charged with kidnapping estranged wife as part of a suicide plan
A Prior Lake woman was kidnapped by her estranged husband this month as part of his plan to commit “suicide by cop,” according to charges filed in Scott County District Court, the Prior Lake American reports.
Timothy Lee Bartizal, 43, is charged with kidnapping and terroristic threats, both felonies, and domestic abuse, a gross misdemeanor. According to the charges, Bartizal does not have a permanent address.
The woman did escape from Bartizal at a Holiday gas station in Shakopee on May 14, the paper reports. She had a clerk call 911 on Bartizal, who had violated a restraining order, as he fled before police arrived.
The woman said that Bartizal has been violent in the past and that she has an order for protection against him, according to the American.
Bartizal forced the woman to drive him to a convenience store to get cigarettes, then again forced her to drive to the Holiday because he "didn't want his son to find him dead," the paper reports the woman saying in the complaint.
According to the paper, Bartizal has a troubled history of arrests and suicidal threats. And the Burnsville Patch says Barizal was charged with burglarizing a Burnsville business and pawning items stolen from there during a “cocaine binge” in May 2011.
According to the Prior Lake paper, Bartizal had been admitted to Regions Hospital in St. Paul after the kidnapping, and on May 22, Bartizal was released from the hospital and transported to Scott County Jail, where he is being held on $300,000 bail.
