An Arkansas mom allegedly went to extreme lengths to scare her daughter away from an online predator posing as country star Luke Bryan by staging a kidnapping to teach her a lesson.
Tammi Hamby, 59, a former Crawford County library board member from Van Buren, recruited three friends to help carry out the ruse to kidnap her own daughter, according to arrest affidavits cited by 40/29 News.
She was arrested on Wednesday on felony charges of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and endangering the welfare of an incompetent person.
While the plan was allegedly to show the young woman “what real danger looks like,” her father, Dr. Jeffrey Hamby, wrote in a Facebook post.
When Crawford County deputies responded on November 17 to reports of a kidnapping, they claimed they found the developmentally delayed 22-year-old woman tied to a tree in a field, her hands zip-tied together and marks visible on her wrists. She was “in fear for her life” and clutching her teddy bear, according to the affidavits.
Her father, who is not facing charges, said the couple had grown desperate after discovering their daughter had been messaging and sending money to someone claiming to be Bryan.
“For the past six months, my special needs daughter has been affected by an online predator who has developed a trauma bond with her and now has her complete control,” he told 40/29 News. “She believes it’s Luke Bryan, and we cannot talk her out of it.”
The doctor said he did not know about the kidnapping plan until after it happened, but defended the intent behind it.
“We’re trying to teach her that there are people who will hurt her, and instead of helping us, they arrest my wife,” he told the outlet. “I’ll spend every dime I’ve got to help my wife and those people who are trying to help my daughter.”
He described his daughter as having “the mentality of an 11-year-old” and said she had become “influenced by an online predator” pretending to be Bryan.
On social media, he wrote that if “that predator tells her he’s coming to pick her up, and she wants to go with him, how do you teach her, someone with no concept or understanding of evil, that danger exists?”
Affidavits state that certified nursing assistant Shannon Childers and friends David Quach and Nico Austria helped stage the abduction, 40/29 News reported.
“These two young men who Jamie didn’t know were pretending to be with Luke Bryan, and they came to pick Jamie up because they had arranged that,” Dr. Hamby said.
“The first words out of my daughter’s mouth, I’ve got [a] video of this, was, ‘I thought it was tomorrow you were supposed to be here.’ And they said, ‘Sorry, but Luke sent us today. It’s now or never.’ She gets in the car with them, with her guitar and her teddy bear, and goes with them willingly.”
According to the affidavits, the group drove to the wrong field, where the men allegedly “began demanding money,” and when the woman said she had none, they zip-tied her wrists and tied her to a tree. When she tried to run, they allegedly “threatened to hurt her if she tried to run or yelled.”
Dr. Hamby later claimed online that reports of his daughter being tied to a tree had been “exaggerated,” though investigators maintain that is what they found.
He also said the family had “exhausted every possible avenue” for help before the staged kidnapping, including “pleading with three different law-enforcement agencies for help and receiving none.” He argued that “a caring parent” would try to protect their daughter “in the safest and most controlled way possible.”
Crawford County Chief Deputy Brad Wiley questioned that logic.
“I don’t understand how you could teach anybody anything through trauma, especially a crime or kidnapping. It doesn’t stand to reason,” Wiley told 40/29 News. “How would she understand? How could she differentiate between reality and a prank?”
The young woman has been placed in state protective custody.
Her mother’s bail was set at $125,000, while the three other defendants each received $25,000 bonds. She has since resigned from the Crawford County Library Board last month, citing a move out of the district.
