May 06, 2015
A Florida woman and her children are safe after she used an online pizza order to ask for help while being held hostage on Monday, WFLA reports.
Cheryl Treadway placed an online order for a small hand-tossed classic pizza with pepperoni from the Pizza Hut in Avon Park, Florida. Under the comments section, she wrote, "Please help. Get 911 to me."
Employees, who recognized Treadway as a regular customer, called the Highlands County Sheriff's Office to alert them of the situation.
“We've never seen that before,” the restaurant's manager, Candy Hamilton, told WFLA. “I've been here 28 years and never, never seen nothing like that come through."
When officers arrived, Treadway told them her boyfriend, Ethan Nickerson, was armed with a knife in the house with two of her children. Lt. Curtis Ludden was able to talk Nickerson, 26, into coming out peacefully, and the children, who were unharmed, were removed from the home.
“If I'm standing there with a knife in my hand, sharpening it, and looking at you in a menacing way and make a statement that, ‘I'm going to kill you,' and I've already done some violence to you, ya know how are you going to take that message?” Ludden explained.
Nickerson was arrested and charged with aggravated assault with a weapon without intent to kill, battery, false imprisonment and obstructing justice by depriving communication to law enforcement.
Treadway's actions are similar to those in a 60-second commercial aired by the NFL during the Super Bowl based on a real 911 call. A woman calls 911 asking to order a pizza for delivery. The male operator is confused at first, but he soon realizes that the caller's strange request is actually a cry for help.
Read more from WFLA.
