New York woman kidnapped and smuggled into Quebec in 2020 testifies about ordeal
By The Canadian Press on January 17, 2023.
MONTREAL – A woman from Upstate New York who was kidnapped and held in a Quebec cottage for two days says she still lives with the consequences of the September 2020 event. Sandra Helm was on the stand today at the trial of Gary Arnold, a Quebec man facing seven charges in an alleged conspiracy to abduct Helm and her late husband James over a drug debt involving their grandson. The couple in their 70s were taken from their home in Moira, N.Y., on Sept. 27, 2020, and discovered by police two days later in Magog, Que., about 125 kilometres southeast of Montreal. Sandra Helm told the court today that despite her captors saying she and her husband would be taken to a boat to return to New York, she didn’t think they would be released. When a police tactical unit moved in to free the couple, who’d been smuggled into Quebec through the Mohawk territory of Akwasasne, Helm said she was scared at first but a heavily armed officer reassured her they were there to rescue the pair. Sandra Helm says even now, more than two years later, she’s afraid to be out at night and worries that someone will try to enter her home. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 17, 2023. 8-7
