Carrie Dryer’s abduction and robbery turns a planned theft into an episode of lost time, as Ragen Vadascovinich sets out to find money but Adalana takes control and chooses Carrie as her target. The account traces the consequences for Carrie through her forced withdrawal of money, and for Ragen through his bewildered return to awareness without a memory of what happened. Later disagreement about whether the women cooperated makes the gap between an offender’s interpretation and a victim’s circumstances part of the event’s significance.

Background and the Shift in Control

In the early hours of Friday, October 14, Ragen Vadascovinich realizes that money is urgently needed for food and winter clothing for the young ones, with no income coming from the job. He decides to commit a robbery. Before dawn, he leaves carrying a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol, having taken Biphetamine and drunk vodka, and jogs west toward the Ohio State University campus. By seven-thirty, after running eleven miles across Columbus, he reaches the East Belmont parking lot. He has no particular target in mind, only the intention to find someone to rob.

When Ragen sees a young woman park a gold Toyota, he turns away. She is wearing a maroon pants suit and an open buckskin coat, and he does not intend to rob a woman. Adalana, however, has been watching and understands why he came. She also registers his exhaustion and the effects of the drugs and alcohol. As the woman leans across the passenger seat to collect books and papers, Adalana takes the gun from Ragen’s holster and approaches her. The intended robbery has not simply continued according to Ragen’s plan: another personality has redirected it toward a person he had deliberately declined to target.

Abduction and Encounter

The woman is Carrie Dryer. At first she mistakes the armed stranger for one of her friends, but when she turns and sees that she does not recognize him, she understands the danger. He directs her into the passenger seat, takes her keys, and drives her car away. Carrie notices his appearance closely, including reddish-brown hair, a neat mustache, a mole on his right cheek, and his approximate height and build. Her careful observation becomes one of the few means of preserving information about the person controlling the car.

The drive takes them west along King Avenue and north on Olentangy River Road, away from the city and into the country. The account records him talking to himself as they travel. In a wooded area beyond a roadway barricade, he parks among fields and junked cars. Carrie remembers sharp scissors kept between the seat and the shift console and considers using them, but he notices her attention and produces a switchblade. He removes handcuffs from the car door while leaving them attached to her wrist, and spreads her coat on the ground.

At this point the narrative shifts to Adalana’s experience. She speaks to Carrie about loneliness and a long absence of affection, and attempts intimacy. Carrie’s body spasms, preventing the attempt from proceeding; the account describes Adalana as confused and frightened by the response, then losing the spot. Carrie explains that she has a physical problem and is seeing a gynecologist. The person in control reacts with anger at having chosen someone with whom he cannot proceed. The scene therefore contains not evidence of cooperation, but a kidnapping in which Carrie is under armed control and attempts to manage a dangerous situation.

Forced Withdrawal and Release

Carrie says she has no money with her. The assailant searches her purse and finds her checkbook, which shows a balance of $460. When she asks to keep enough to live on for the week, he directs her to leave $60 and write a check for $400. Her effort to protect her family is explicit in her plea that they not be bothered and that he take her money instead. The exchange is not a voluntary financial arrangement: the account places it within an abduction enforced by a weapon and threats.

At an Ohio National Bank drive-in window at 770 West Broad Street, the gun remains concealed between them but pointed at Carrie. She presents her identification with the check. She considers writing a request for help on its reverse, but he warns her not to add anything. The teller cashes the check. He then tells Carrie that she can report a robbery and stop payment, shifting the financial loss onto the bank. This instruction does not undo the coercion that secured the money; it is part of his attempt to manage the consequences of the forced transaction.

As the car reaches the intersection of Broad and High streets, heavy traffic brings it to a halt. He tells Carrie to take over driving and threatens that someone will harm her or her family if she gives police his description. He gets out and quickly disappears into the crowd. Carrie is left with the car and the immediate burden of deciding what to report under the threat she has just received.

Lost Time and Disputed Accounts

Ragen expects to find himself back in the Ohio State University parking lot, but instead becomes aware of himself walking past Lazarus’ Department Store in the middle of the afternoon. He cannot account for the intervening hours. Finding a roll of money in his pocket, he concludes that he must have robbed someone, though he does not remember doing so. He takes an eastbound bus to Reynoldsburg. The robbery thus has a second consequence beyond the loss imposed on Carrie: it demonstrates the division between Ragen’s intention and Adalana’s actions, while Ragen remains without a continuous memory of the event.

The later discussion of trial strategy gives this split an ethical and evidentiary consequence. Arthur argues that, according to Adalana’s story, the three women cooperated, were not injured, had opportunities to escape, and received some money back so that insurance payments would leave them ahead. Judy Stevenson and Gary Schweickart do not accept that account. They understand that Arthur is describing Adalana’s perception of what happened, rather than a version confirmed by the women. Arthur says Adalana cannot be consulted because she has been banished from the spot. The dispute is especially important when set beside Carrie’s account: she was abducted, controlled at gunpoint, compelled to cash a check, and threatened against reporting the assailant’s description. The event’s later retelling therefore does not make the question of consent or cooperation neutral; it reveals how sharply the personalities’ account of an encounter can diverge from the circumstances the victim describes.