Become an Apple Subscriber or Patron to listen!
During the peak of the COVID pandemic, 26-year-old Carolina Vargas ended her five-year relationship & moved in with her brother. Because she was in a new location, she began searching for a job which was exceptionally challenging due to the pandemic. It was important to her that she help pay her brother’s rent so she wracked her brain & considered the fact that she had a license & a car, a black Ford Explorer, so Uber seemed to be the perfect solution.
Carolina took her new job seriously & was sure that not only was her car always clean, but she also provided water to her customers. In May of 2020, she found that Uber rides were significantly slowing down since most people were sheltering in place, so she would accept any ride offer that she could.
Toward the end of the day on Tuesday, May 5, 2020, Carolina took an older man from a rental car on Charlotte Avenue in Nashville & drove 5.5 miles to the Hampton Inn hotel on Fesslers Lane & ended the ride on the app since they reached the destination. He told her that his truck had broken down. As she was about to drive off, the man stopped her & asked if she would be interested in driving him to Cleveland, Tennessee on Friday to where his 18 wheel truck was as he was having transmission issues; he would pay her $300 in cash directly, outside the Uber app, so she would be able to receive the full transaction. He further explained that he wasn’t able to rent a car since he didn’t have proof of residency. According to Google Maps, Nashville to Cleveland is a 164 mile drive that would take approximately 2.5 hours one way or 5 hours round trip (not counting the cost of gas, this would equate to $60/hour).
Carolina had been in a tight financial situation & her bills were beginning to pile up as she hadn’t been able to work in March or April since she suffered from asthma & was fearful of catching COVID. Knowing the money from this one trip would cover her rent, she quickly accepted his offer. The two exchanged numbers & the man planned to be in touch with Carolina in regards to their trip.
Two days later, on Thursday, May 7, the man texted Carolina & indicated that the place that was fixing his truck indicated that it would be ready at 5 pm the next day. He asked if she could pick him up at the same hotel where she had dropped him off on Friday.
Carolina picked him up the following morning, Friday, May 8, as he waited for her outside the hotel with three bags. He placed two of the bags in the back of the SUV & placed one in the backseat where he would be sitting. Surveillance videos captured the man loading his bags into the car & before they left, he asked her if he could smoke a cigarette. As he stood outside the car smoking, Carolina texted her mom & a picture of the man, as if to show off the job she was getting ready to do & the money that she would earn that she desperately needed.
As he climbed into the backseat of Carolina’s Explorer, he pointed out a white Hyundai across the parking lot & indicated that it was his. She asked him why he didn’t just drive himself to Nashville & he told her that he needed the car to stay in Cleveland since he lived there.
Carolina wasn’t at all fearful of the idea of driving this man to his destination & when she would normally feel weird about something, she would choose to trust her gut instinct & not do it. She felt that he seemed honest & hardworking & their first trip had gone by without incident.
The day was drizzly & wet as Carolina made the drive toward Cleveland, with her passenger in the back. The man began to open up about his life & presented himself as a family man. The drive was comfortable, he never asked her anything weird or personal & after they’d driven about thirty-five minutes, they came upon traffic. The man told her that since he was a truck driver, he knew a shortcut that would allow them to make better time. He did seem to demand this request & Carolina began to feel uneasy. She listened to his instructions as he directed her to a different route that took her on the back roads into Cohutta, Georgia on Cleveland Highway, about forty minutes outside Chattanooga; at this point, they were about 18 miles from their intended destination of Cleveland.
Carolina had her GPS on as she drove & noticed that directions he was giving her was only adding time to their trip. When she began to question the situation & figure out an alternate route, the man suddenly reached into his bag & pulled out a knife, held it to her ribcage & hit her in the ribs. His previously pleasant demeanor seemed to change on a dime as he hissed instructions for her to “Keep driving. Don’t speed up & don’t slow down. Drive normal” She recalled that she had done absolutely nothing to trigger him as he told her, “Now you are going to do what I say.” She begged for her life & he proceeded to move the blade of the knife to her throat. Carolina was clearly stunned & felt like she was living in a horror movie.
As Carolina followed his terrifying instructions, she also wracked her brain to figure out a way that she could possibly escape the situation. She was aware that if she did what he was telling her, she would ultimately end up dead. She thought maybe she could slam on her breaks & the car behind her would rear end her, but no one was following behind. She also thought about hitting another car head-on since she knew that time was running out when he asked her to hand her phone over.
At this point, Carolina made the split-second decision to unbuckle her seatbelt, open the door & jump out while the car traveled nearly 60 miles per hour. Because of the high speed, Carolina’s body tumbled about eighty feet before stopping, as she sprawled across the Georgia highway between Stain Road & Wheeler Dam Road.
In the meantime, the man had managed to jump from the backseat to the driver’s seat & drove off with her car, her purse & her laptop.
When Carolina made the jump, the rear tire of her own car ran over her leg, yet it miraculously didn’t break. She recalls feeling a “ball of fire” where the tire drove over her. At some point she lost consciousness for what she believed was a few minutes; when she came to, she was so grateful to be alive & absolutely shocked by how fast everything had happened. Carolina began to wave to get someone’s attention while crawling to the opposite side of traffic.
She had road rash across her mouth, chin & arms, terrible bruising & abrasions throughout her body, three of her front teeth were knocked out & she had a small brain bleed. As Carolina lay in the road, stunned & injured, she was thankfully holding her phone. Before she made the terrifying jump, she unplugged her phone & gripped it as she hit the pavement. Before calling 911, she made the decision to dial her mother & when her mom picked up, she could hear her daughter screaming & crying on the other end. Carolina later recalled that she was unable to form any words at that point, likely still in shock.
Her mother was confused by the call, but obviously knew that something must be terribly wrong & told Carolina that she needed to call the police. As Carolina ended the call with her mom & began to call 911, a couple noticed her laying in the road. They quickly stopped their car in the middle of the highway & rushed over to her. As the man called 911 with his own phone, the woman crouched by Carolina, held her hand & tried to offer her some comfort as Carolina begged them not to leave her, afraid that she would die. Police, firefighters & an ambulance arrived at about 4:45 pm & Carolina was transported to the nearest hospital & was later transferred to a second hospital, Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton, Georgia.
Carolina had the picture on her phone that she had taken of her passenger as well as his phone number & authorities started at the Hampton Inn hotel where Carolina picked him up. Hotel employees were shown his picture & within moments, the front desk was able to provide police with the man’s name & license number. He was 51-year-old Chris Miller who was a truck driver that lived only minutes from the hotel where he had been staying.
As police began their manhunt, Carolina was reunited with her mother at the hospital & her mom described the reunion as “like seeing her the first day she was born.” Police quickly obtained a warrant to ping Chris’ phone & were able to track him via the GPS on his cell phone. After Carolina jumped from the driver’s seat, Chris had quickly moved from the back seat to the driver’s seat & stopped at a Target shopping center.
He dropped Carolina’s SUV off in a parking spot at Target, rented a new car, armed himself with guns & headed South. Investigators tracked him to a truck stop just outside of Jacksonville, Florida & he was arrested without incident on Monday, May 11 despite the fact that he had several guns in his possession. Carolina’s 2011 Ford Explorer was later found in Cleveland, Tennessee.
Chris Miller was charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment, hijacking a motor vehicle, aggravated assault & possession of a knife. He provided police with no information & immediately requested a lawyer. Because of this, the motive for what he did was never discovered.
While in prison, Chris refused to take the medication for his heart & ended up dying before his sentencing. Carolina was faced with several emotions; she felt anger toward him as well as sorrow for his family. She was angry that he had taken the easy way out & avoided the punishment that he deserved. Now she was faced with healing both mentally & physically after her traumatic ordeal.
Carolina also faced medical bills so her brother started a Go Fund Me Page to help support his sister while she recovered. Thus far, $16,763 of the $20,000 goal has been raised.
After a dentist, Steven Hernandez, who owns Lifetime Dentistry in Bellevue, heard Carolina’s harrowing story & the fact that her teeth had been broken in her fall, he reached out & told her that he wanted to help her restore her confidence & offered to fix her teeth. He felt that his office could add some positive energy into the world by helping her out.
An Uber representative indicated that since Carolina wasn’t using the ride-sharing app for the trip, it was not an Uber trip & against community guidelines to contact a customer without the use of an app.
Carolina was aware that with her daring jump, she saved herself with God’s help & also saved others from being Chris Miller’s next victim.
References:
- Medium: Uber hijacking nightmare: Carolina Vargas’ amazing survival story
- Oxygen True Crime: Rideshare driver flung herself out of speeding SUV to escape alleged knife-wielding captor
- Yahoo! News: Uber driver escapes abduction at knife-point by jumping out of her car at 60 mph
- SK Pop: #TextMeWhenYouGetHome on Lifetime: How did rideshare driver Carolina Vargas escape her captor?
- Go Fund Me: The Bravest Girl Ever
- Fox17: Local dentist covers expenses for Uber driver who jumped out of vehicle to escape attacker
- 11 Alive: Man arrested after allegedly holding Uber driver at knifepoint: ‘It was like a horror movie’
