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<h3 id="sharebar-trigger-mobile"><span style="color:#808080;"><em><strong>&#8216;Someone please lose the keys after these guys are locked up&#8217; </strong></em></span></h3>
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<h6><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>Teen held captive for a month swims across lake to escape kidnapper</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>Three men were arrested in connection with disappearance of 15-year-old Jasmine Block</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>Thomas Barker, 32, Joshua Holby, 31, and Steven Powers, 20 were arrested Tuesday </strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>Teen was acquainted with one of the suspects, Thomas Barker who is a family friend</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>Barker reportedly convinced the victim to get in a car on Aug. 8 and brought her to his Carlos home, where she was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted</strong></span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#000000;"><strong>“Barker tied her up with zip ties and then he, his roommate, and friend over the next several weeks assaulted her and threatened her with weapon</strong>s” &#8211; Cops</span></h6>
<h6><span style="color:#000000;">Thomas Barker, Joshua Holby and Steven Powers face charges for kidnapping, false imprisonment, physically and sexually assaulting the teen</span></h6>
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<h6 class="wp-caption-text featured"><strong><strong><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-250768" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/thomas-barker-left-joshua-holby-center-and-steven-powers-alexandria-1.jpg" alt="Thomas Barker [left], Joshua Holby [center], and Steven Powers Alexandria 1.jpg" width="664" height="441" />Thomas Barker [left], Joshua Holby [center] and Steven Powers</strong> were arrested in connection with disappearance of 15-year-old Jasmine Block. They face charges of kidnap and assault</strong></h6>
<div class="wp-caption-text featured">A kidnapped Minnesota teen bravely swam across a lake to safety from her abductors after nearly a month in captivity. 15-year-old Jasmine Block disappeared around 10.30 pm on August 8 from outside her mother’s home.</div>
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<p>The teen was reunited with her family this week after she disappeared from her Alexandria home in August, <a href="http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2017/09/06/missing-teenager-alexandria-found/">news station WCCO reported</a>.<br />
Police say 32-year-old Thomas Barker, a family acquaintance and two other men assaulted Block at various locations over the course of a month. The victim made her getaway after the three men left her alone in a foreclosed property in rural Grant County.<br />
Three men were arrested in connection to her disappearance. Police identified the other suspects as Joshua Holby, 31, and Steven Powers, 20.<br />
Authorities said the 15-year-old was acquainted with at least one of the suspects, Barker who reportedly convinced the teen to get in a car on Aug. 8 and brought her to his Carlos home, where she was repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted.<br />
“Barker tied her up with zip ties and then he, his roommate, and friend over the next several weeks assaulted her and threatened her with weapons,” Alexandria Police Chief Rick Wyffels said.</p>
<h6><strong><img class="alignnone wp-image-250748" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/jasmine-block-and-her-mum-sarah-block-left-1.jpg" alt="Jasmine Block and her mum Sarah Block [left] 1" width="670" height="677" />After the escape and rescue Jasmine Block [right], poses for this photo that her mom Sarah Block [left], posted on Facebook </strong></h6>
<p>On Tuesday afternoon, the captors left the teen alone for the first time and she made her escape, <a href="http://www.kare11.com/news/police-kidnapped-alexandria-teen-escaped-captors/471665592">news station KARE reported</a>.<br />
The 15-year-old went to several homes for help, but no one answered, so she swam across Thompson Lake. Once ashore, she ran to a farm, where a man called 911.<br />
The teen was taken to a hospital, where she was treated for minor injuries.<br />
“This is an unbelievable young woman,” Chief Wyffels said. “She has a lot of strength. We think a lot of her and her family. They’re all amazing people.”<br />
Police said the three suspects remain in custody and face charges for kidnapping, false imprisonment and assault.<br />
The farmer who found Jasmine Block had stopped by his house in the middle of his work shift, only to find the missing teen while standing outside his home.<br />
He&#8217;d left work Tuesday because he forgot something at his house, he said.<br />
Just before he got back in his truck to return to work he saw something unusual in the grasslands on the back of his property. From hundreds of yards away he thought he saw a deer.“It’s usually quiet out here,” said the farmer.<br />
“She was up so I could see her but I couldn’t tell what it was,” he said.<br />
He said once he realized it was a girl he started his truck to drive toward her, when suddenly she came running.<br />
“When she come walking out of the grass I’m thinking oh my gosh, you got to be kidding me,” he said. “When I saw her face I knew right away.”<br />
It was Jasmine Block, the teenager who went missing weeks earlier.<br />
“It was just a great feeling, [I told her] ‘just get in the pickup, we’re going to help you now,&#8217;” he said.<br />
According to Police Chief Wyffels, the ring leader is Barker who lured Jasmine into his car last month when he told the girl he needed her help with a family situation. He ended up taking her to his home in Carlos. He shackled with zip ties and then invited his roommate and friend over the next several weeks as they took turns assaulting her, while threatening the teen with weapons.</p>
<h6><strong><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-250857" src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/jasmine-block-4.png" alt="Jasmine Block 4" width="956" height="534" />Police described Jasmine Block as “an unbelievable young woman,” who “ has a lot of strength.”</strong></h6>
<p>Police said they also took her to various cornfields and eventually a foreclosed home on Thompson Lake in Grant County, Chief Wyffel said.<br />
At one point her three captors left her alone to grab lunch which is when she made her escape. She swam across the lake and onto the man’s property. the teen who was rescued without pants or shoes, said she took them off in the water because they were making it hard for her to swim.<br />
Mother luck shone one more time on Jasmine Block, as the man who rescued her made a move to drive her away from the property dispatchers told him to stay put. When responding officers arrived, they also bagged the suspects: “I was getting her out of the pickup to put her in the deputy’s car and she says ‘There’s the car, there’s the car’,” the farmer said. Jasmine had spotted a vehicle belonging to one of the suspects driving right past the home.<br />
“So one of the deputies chased him down.”<br />
It was the first of three arrests made in the case. He led them to the two remaining suspects. All three remain in police custody awaiting formal kidnapping, false imprisonment and assault charges.<br />
Police are hoping to recover Jasmines pants and shoes left behind in the lake.</p>
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Teen swims across lake to escape kidnappers – Thomas Barker, Joshua Holby and Steven Powers abducted girl, 15, at gun point repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted her, for weeks
