Christina Muedeking heard the knock at the door about 8 o'clock Tuesday night. At first, she said, the young man in the jeans and sweatshirt looked like someone seeking donations. Then, she said, he frantically tried to force his way through the door.
"He wanted to use the phone," she said. "He wanted to call his mom."
The young man, crying and with blood around his eyes and partly shackled at his ankles and one wrist, then shared parts of a horrific tale: He had been kidnapped, chained to a basement wall for days and assaulted.
On Wednesday, a day after his arrest, a St. Paul man with out-of-state convictions for kidnapping and attempted murder was charged in Ramsey County District Court with kidnapping and rape after allegedly grabbing the 19-year-old man off a north Minneapolis street Friday night.
Wilbert Glover, 55, repeatedly sexually assaulted the teenager over the four days he held him captive in a house in St. Paul's North End neighborhood, according to a criminal complaint.
Glover, who police say repeatedly slammed his head against a wall in a holding cell wall after his arrest, is being treated at Regions Hospital in St. Paul. His bail has been set at $1 million, and he is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday.
The charges filed on Wednesday identify the victim only as DNB. According to the criminal complaint:
DNB was walking along a street in north Minneapolis Friday night when someone came up behind him and strangled him until he passed out. He awoke blindfolded and bound, uncertain of his whereabouts. When he removed the blindfold, his kidnapper "Maced him and told him not to remove the blindfold."
DNB told police that his attacker, who he said sounded like an older adult man, repeatedly raped him over several days. "He could never see his attacker but he could hear him speaking," the complaint said.
On Tuesday, after the kidnapper had left the house, DNB pulled off his blindfold and removed his left wrist from a single handcuff. After realizing he was in a basement, he pulled hard on his chains, freed himself from the wall and cut power to the house by switching off the circuit breakers, then found a fire extinguisher on the basement stairwell and used it to break out a bathroom window and escape.
Minutes later, Christina and Garrett Muedeking, who live just a few doors away, heard the knocking on their front door.
Christina Muedeking said in an interview Wednesday that the teenager had a handcuff on one wrist and shackles on his ankles. He also carried a chain and a fire extinguisher, and had bruises on his wrists and a raised red line around his neck "like a scar," she said.
The Muedekings called 911. Police arrived within minutes, they said, and cordoned off the block. At that point, officers canvassed the neighborhood looking for a house with a broken back window, according to the criminal complaint. They found it a few doors away.
Police also found several home security cameras around the yard, with wires going into the house, which Glover was renting and which was owned by a rental company. All of the basement windows "were covered with boards," the complaint said.
An arrest and a search
Neighbors told police that the only person they saw going to and from the house was an older, black man who appeared to live there, the complaint said. That man drove a purple Cadillac sedan and a silver Mercedes sedan.
Officers arrested Glover after he pulled up to the house in the Mercedes, the complaint said. He told them he was in the area to visit a friend and denied living nearby. But the name on the mailbox and a neighbor, along with the property owner, indicated that he lived there, police said.
Police searched the house and found DNB's identification. They also found a mattress on the floor of the basement and a pipe protruding from the wall with straps attached to it. They recovered a pair of handcuffs on the top step of the stairway and a 5-gallon bucket that contained used condoms.
Tom DeLisle, who owns the house, said Wednesday that Glover had been living there for about a year. He said that he'd received "no complaints" about him and that Glover had improved the property by painting it and replacing the kitchen floors. He said Glover previously lived in north Minneapolis.
Records show that Glover was convicted in Illinois in 1984 of kidnapping and in 1985 of attempted murder, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was imprisoned in September 1987 and released from custody in September 2008. He was released from parole three years later.
On Wednesday afternoon, a pair of white Police Forensics Unit vans were parked in front of Glover's rented house. An officer carried several large manila envelopes from the house to one of the vans.
The Muedekings, who have lived nearby for more than six years, said they did not know Glover and had no idea what was happening in the house until the teenager knocked on their door. They said they were simply glad to be home when the young man sought help.
"If [Garrett] hadn't have been home with me," "Christina Muedeking said, "I wouldn't have answered the door."
James Walsh • 651-925-5040
