ROCKINGHAM — A Hamlet man is charged with breaking into a woman’s home and kidnapping her and her two young children and making death threats while the woman was serving as a witness against him in court.
John Thomas Grant, 31, of Winston Salem Street, is charged with three felony counts of second degree kidnapping, one felony count each of breaking and entering and intimidating a witness, two misdemeanor counts each of assaulting a female and violating a protective order and one misdemeanor count each of communicating threats and interfering with emergency communications.
Grant, who had a protective order placed against him on Sept. 10, 2018 after he was charged with assaulting the same woman, grabbed the woman by the throat and burned the right side of her face with a cigarette on April 21, according to warrants for his arrest.
Then on April 23, warrants allege that Grant broke into the woman’s home, slapped her about the head and face, grabbing her arm and squeezing her throat until she could not breath. During this altercation, Grant also allegedly told her that he was going to kill her and told her that he “needed to figure out what he was going to do with the body”.
The children Grant allegedly kidnapped were ages 5 and 2, according to the warrants. Grant is charged with felony counts of second degree kidnapping, which means the woman and two children were released in a safe place and had not been seriously injured or sexually assaulted, according to N.C. General Statute 14-39.
At the time, the woman was a witness in a case against Grant for another charge of intimidating a witness and violating a protective order.
Grant is being held without bond at the Richmond County Jail and is scheduled to appear in court on May 6.
Records with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety show that Grant has no prior convictions in North Carolina.