YORKVILLE, Ill. — A 43-year-old registered sexual predator from Coal City, Ill., has been arrested in connection with an alleged abduction of a woman Tuesday in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Jeffery M. Lazier (Source: Cape Girardeau, Mo. PD)
Jeffery M. Lazier
(Source: Cape Girardeau, Mo. PD)

Jeffery M. Lazier was arrested around 2 p.m. Friday, in Yorkville, Ill., following a nearly three-day manhunt that started Tuesday when his alleged victim managed to jump from his truck at an Effingham, Ill., intersection and run for help.

Photos taken of Lazier’s 2006 red F-250 pickup truck in Anna, Ill., were released by the FBI Thursday. Yorkville is west of Chicago.

Lazier is being held on a $250,000 cash only bond, for First Degree robbery, felony kidnapping, armed criminal action, First Degree felony sodomy and First Degree felony sexual abuse. Police say he’s being held pending extradition back to Missouri.

He is accused of kidnapping a woman from Cape County Park South and sexually her on May 12.

Investigators with the FBI, Cape Girardeau Police Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Illinois State Police, Effingham, Ill. Police Department, Anna, Ill. Police Department and Centralia, Ill. Police Department have been following leads for the three days.

On Friday morning, the Missouri State Highway Patrol crime lab lifted fingerprints from the victim’s vehicle that they say belonged to Lazier.

Investigators also confirmed that Lazier owned a red 2006 Ford F-250.

The Illinois Sex Offender Registry, Lazier is considered a sexual predator. He was convicted and pleaded guilty in 2007 in Grundy County of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a 3-year-old. He was sentenced to six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. He was 36 at the time.

According to a probable cause statement, the woman said the man was holding a long knife when opened the front passenger-side door of her car where she was sitting at Cape County Park South and told her to give him her wallet, phone and money.

After handing him the cell phone, she told him she did not have any cash.

The man allegedly took the phone and then forced her out of her car and into his truck at knife point.

Once inside the truck, she said the man demanded that she undress while he drove her south on Interstate 55. The man allegedly continued to drive south on I-55, eventually in the area of Matthews, Mo., where he repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

Following the sexual assault, the man allegedly drove her back to Cape Girardeau, asking her where her bank was located, and she suggested he let her withdraw money from an ATM in Cape Girardau.

Authorities say it was while the two were sitting in the drive thru of the bank, that security cameras caught the victim having to climb into and over the lap of the man as she tried to pull money from the ATM machine. She was unable to withdraw any money.

The man then allegedly drove the woman to a bank in Illinois where she was able to withdraw money.

It was at the off-ramp to Exit 159 of I-57 in Effingham that the woman saw an opportunity to escape, and around 5 p.m. jumped from the truck.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes:

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>