Over the course of six hours, Aileen Stevens endured more terror than most people will experience in a lifetime.
She was kidnapped at gunpoint.
Almost raped by her attacker.
Witnessed her own husband’s murder.
Flipped inside a speeding vehicle while fleeing police.
And felt her kidnapper’s blood trickle onto her arm after he shot himself in the head.
“To me, it’s a miracle I’m still here,” said Aileen in an interview with the Standard on Monday. “That nothing happened to me and that nothing happened to my baby in the car wreck is just amazing. When it all started, when he first got in the car with the gun, I thought I was having a panic attack. It was shocking. And how everything happened, it was like stuff that doesn’t ever happen except in the movies. One of the things that really sticks with me is this was just a regular day and this could have happened to anyone.”
St. Louis, Missouri resident Dangelo Dorsey, 29, is the man responsible for the events which forever changed Aileen’s life. He shot and killed two people on Sunday, Sept. 13, before taking his own life after crashing during a police chase.
One of the two he killed was 23-year-old Jordan Stevens, a Warren County resident, expectant father, and Aileen’s husband. Jordan died three days before he and Aileen were scheduled to learn the gender of their baby.
THE KIDNAPPING
Jordan and Aileen were on their way to church in Murfreesboro in Jordan’s red Mustang. Aileen said they normally rode to church with her parents, but since she was starting to teach a Sunday school class at church she and Jordan left one hour early.
They had made it through Woodbury and were approaching Murfreesboro on the four-lane when their vehicle got bumped hard from behind. Jordan stopped, got out to inspect the damage, and began talking with the man who would soon be his kidnapper.
“We stopped and I heard Jordan talking to him and I turned around and saw that he had a gun,” said Aileen. “I heard him say that he had already killed people earlier in the day and he wasn’t afraid to do it again. I had started to dial 911, but Jordan told me to stop. I got out and he was going to take the car and leave us there on the side of the road. That would have been the end of it. But he got in and he couldn’t drive a stick shift. He didn’t know how to work the clutch. So he ordered us back in and wanted Jordan to show him how to drive it. But that didn’t work either. He finally said, ‘I don’t have time for this’ and he ordered Jordan to drive.”
With Jordan behind the wheel, Aileen said they began traveling toward Murfreesboro before their kidnapper ordered them to turn around on the four-lane and return to their home. On their way back to Smartt Station, the gunman ordered Jordan to stop at a store in Newtown and told Aileen to go inside to buy him cigarettes. She complied.
“He had thrown my phone out in Woodbury so I couldn’t call anyone,” said Aileen. “I thought if I did anything except return with the cigarettes he would kill Jordan.”
The kidnapper made Jordan call his parents to ensure they had left for church and wouldn’t be home. He learned they were on their way out the door and Jordan falsely told his parents that he and Aileen had made it to church safely.
As they neared their home, Jordan almost passed his parents on the road, but he made a quick turn so his parents would not see his very identifiable red Mustang.
“If they saw us, his parents would have turned around and come home,” said Aileen. “They would have known something was wrong. Jordan didn’t want to put them in danger.”
Once inside their home, the kidnapper demanded Jordan round up all the guns and hand them over to him. He then ordered Jordan into the bathroom.
“He kept telling Jordan that he was so tall he was making him paranoid,” said Aileen of her 6-foot-3 husband. “So he told him to go into the bathroom and not to come out. He kept taking some kind of drugs. I don’t know what it was. I’ve never seen drugs before in my life. He kept reaching inside a baggie and getting out some black, tar-like substance that he kept putting in his mouth.”
Aileen said the kidnapper put the gun to his lips and made a “Shhh” sound before walking her to a bedroom. She said he began rubbing her shoulders and behaving as if he was going to sexually assault her.
“I told him I was pregnant and that is what stopped him,” said Aileen. “He told me he couldn’t do that to a pregnant woman.”
The kidnapper got a change of clothes and was originally going to flee by himself in Aileen’s blue Rav4, which has an automatic transmission. The plan was to leave Jordan and Aileen behind at the house.
However, the kidnapper decided he wanted them to withdraw money from a local ATM and give it to him. He then decided he didn’t want to leave them at home at all.
THE MURDER
With Aileen driving, Jordan in the passenger seat and the kidnapper in the back, they left in the Rav4 from Smartt Station with an unknown destination.
“He didn’t know where he wanted to go,” said Aileen, a kindergarten teacher at Hickory Creek. “First he thought he wanted to go to Texas so he plugged that into the GPS. The whole time I was thinking, ‘I can’t go to Texas. I have school tomorrow.’ He kept saying to us, ‘You guys are good people. Nothing is going to happen to you.’”
Aileen said they began traveling through Morrison and toward Interstate 24. The kidnapper wanted them to stop to buy beer, but he didn’t know how to accomplish this and still keep them hostage. Aileen, who has since turned 24, pointed out there’s no way she would be sold beer by a store clerk because she looked so young and the kidnapper had disposed of her ID.
Unable to figure out how he could get beer, they turned by the convenience store that used to be a Kangaroo Market and began traveling toward the Bonnaroo grounds.
“He wanted to find a place to stop so he could let us out and he could drive on, but he was so paranoid. He kept taking his drugs and smoking his cigarettes,” said Aileen. “At our first stop he said it was too open, that someone would see us, and there was absolutely nobody around. At our second stop, he wanted to know how long it would take us to get home. Then he wanted to give us some money, give us back some of the money we had just given to him from the ATM, because he said he couldn’t leave us out in the middle of nowhere with no way home.”
It was during the second stop that Jordan asked his kidnapper if he could say a prayer. The kidnapper agreed.
“Jordan prayed for him and prayed that he would find peace in his heart,” said Aileen. “When Jordan was done, he looked at him and said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that. You shouldn’t have prayed for me.’ It was like a switch went off.”
They were ordered back into the car and continued driving. On the third stop, the kidnapper told Jordan to walk by himself to his left and for Aileen to walk by herself to her right. As Aileen was walking away, she heard gunshots.
“The first thing I thought was that someone was out here hunting and it was going to freak the guy out. Then I realized what happened,” said Aileen with tears in her eyes. “I turned around and I saw Jordan falling face forward with blood on his back. I was in shock. I kept screaming ‘You didn’t have to do that to him! You didn’t have to do that!’ He said that it had to be done and that we weren’t going to talk about it anymore.”
THE CHASE
The report of a shooting on Interstate 24 early Sunday morning began to make its way around the Tennessee news circuit. A man had opened fire inside a moving vehicle, killing one and causing an interstate crash. A search was underway to find the killer.
With that news in mind, and with Jordan and Aileen never making it to church that morning, family members became concerned.
“He had kept Jordan’s phone in his pocket and it was connected to the Bluetooth in my car,” said Aileen. “His phone kept going off. It was my parents, his parents, his friends, everyone was wanting to check on us.”
Aileen said after Jordan was killed the kidnapper ordered her to drive up Interstate 24. They encountered heavy traffic because the highway was still blocked from the incident he had created earlier that same morning.
“From Exit 111 to Exit 105, it probably took us an hour,” said Aileen. “We got off at Exit 105 and we went into a store because he still wanted beer.”
Aileen said she was tempted to scream inside the store that she was being held hostage, but decided otherwise.
“I thought he would shoot up the store and kill everyone in there if I did that,” said Aileen. “I looked at some man and tried to alert him to what was happening with my eyes but he just smiled at me.”
Aileen said the man was doing drugs and drinking beer when they got back on the interstate and headed toward Chattanooga. He was now driving was still talking about letting her out. They decided on a remote exit and he began to take it, but he noticed a Tennessee Highway Patrol vehicle waiting on the exit ramp. He veered back on the interstate at the last second, a maneuver which was noticed by the state trooper.
“That’s when the speed chase started,” said Aileen. “He was honking at cars and they were pulling over on the shoulder and getting out of the way. Behind us there were blue lights everywhere. He was acting like he was trying to get over on the median so we could cross to the other side of the interstate and that’s when we got hit from behind and we flipped.”
The Rav4 came to rest upside down. As she was hanging by her seatbelt, Aileen said she could feel the weight of her kidnapper up against her, but she couldn’t see him because airbags had deployed and they provided a buffer between the two of them.
Then she heard a gunshot and then there was more weight from her kidnapper. Warn blood began to trickle onto her arm. She said officers started yelling at her to get out.
“I could see cops all around with guns facing the car,” said Aileen. “They kept wanting me to get out but I said, ‘I can’t. I’m stuck.’ Someone finally came and cut me out and I fell on the ground. That’s when I told them he killed himself and he killed my husband.”
She said one of the worst parts was when she finally got in touch with family members.
“I was on speaker phone and everybody was saying how glad they were that the three of us were safe,” said Aileen. “They were counting us as three because of the baby. That’s when I had to tell them that all three of us weren’t safe and that’s when I heard everyone start crying.”
FINDING HOPE
Aileen comes from a religious family with two uncles and a grandfather who have been preachers. She said her faith in the Lord is what has carried her though this tragedy.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to understand God’s purpose but God has a plan for everything and that’s often hard for humans to comprehend,” said Aileen. “This happened on a Sunday and by the next Saturday I think I had counted 80 packages that were delivered to our house. It shows how many good people there are in the world, how many people who are out there who still have kindness.”
She said before his death Jordan had talked one of his friends into attending church. She said his friend had been going regularly.
“Jordan said that was a jewel in his crown,” said Aileen. “I’ve had several people who have been inspired by Jordan’s story and they are going to church now too, so his crown has a lot more jewels than just one.”
Aileen said she and Jordan had already picked out a name for a girl but had never discussed a name for a boy. Aileen received the news she would be having a girl. Her due date is in February.
“Her name is Galilea Valentina Stevens,” said Aileen. “I looked up the meaning and Galilea means ‘gift from God’ and Valentina means ‘strong and healthy.’”
Aileen said if she can convey one message through this whole ordeal it’s that her faith in God has carried her through and allowed her to continue living.
