Police in New Braunfels have arrested two people they accuse of lying about being kidnapped by armed men who got into their vehicles while they were driving.
KVUE reported the two incidents when they surfaced, and the police department there said the community at-large "spent the next several days in a heightened state of alert," according to a press release from the New Braunfels police.
In the first reported incident on Jan. 16, a 35-year-old man told police that another man got into his vehicle, displayed a firearm and instructed him to drive. The alleged victim told police the man then got out of the vehicle after the two briefly struggled.
The next day, on Jan. 17, a 21-year-old woman similarly told police that that an unknown man flagged her down, entered her car, displayed a firearm and instructed her to drive to Houston. She told police that at some point during the drive she was able to stab the man and escape the car to a nearby bar.
The New Braunfels Police Department said that for the next several days following the reports, the department responded to "numerous calls for suspicious people that possibly matched the description of the alleged suspect."
Weeks later, investigators found the reports to be false and confronted the alleged victims, Michael Neumann and Sabrina Quintero, with the evidence. Both of them admitted that they had lied to police.
In the press release, NBPD stressed that there currently is not -- nor was there ever -- an armed man that was entering vehicles and kidnapping drivers. "He simply didn't exist," the statement said.
Neumann and Quintero of New Braunfels were arrested and booked in the Comal County Jail on March 1. They were charged with false report to a peace officer and Quintero was also charged with tampering with or fabricating physical evidence for allegedly staging evidence to support her claim.
The press release also notes that another woman, Rebecca Palmer, was arrested Jan. 20. She claimed that an unknown man entered her vehicle and demanded that she keep driving. Police allege she was involved in a hit-and-run crash and said the man entered her car prior to the crash in order to avoid charges.