Judge orders mental evaluation for suspect in bizarre kidnapping

Man allegedly tried to use woman to get bank loan

Friday, Dec. 4, 2009

A judge has ordered that a Waldorf man receive a mental health evaluation as he remains jailed without bond on charges filed by police alleging he abducted a woman last week and took her to a bank in his efforts to get a loan.

Michael H. Williams, 43, twice visited the PNC Bank branch in Mechanicsville on Nov. 24, court papers state, and he initially arrived there with another woman, Regina Marlene Myers Williams. He identified her as his wife, and when she wouldn't co-sign his loan application, police report, he wrote his wife's name on the form. The bank's staff wouldn't accept it, and he left the bank.

Michael Williams returned to the bank about two hours later, court papers state, accompanied that time by a 24-year-old Brandywine woman. Williams also identified her as his wife, court papers state, but a bank employee noticed that the woman "appeared to be extremely frightened."

The employee told Williams that Hancock "was not his wife and she was too young," St. Mary's sheriff's deputy Robert Gill wrote in court papers.

The woman did not want to sign the loan documents, court papers state, but the employee asked her to sign them so her signature could be compared to a copy on file of Regina Williams' signature. Michael Williams followed the bank's employee into a manager's office, and Williams kept insisting that the woman was his wife until he tried to grab the paperwork as he left again.

The woman told the sheriff's deputy responding to the bank that she had been waiting for a bus at a nearby BP gas station when the suspect drove up and told her "get in the truck or you're going to get hurt," according to charging documents. Williams drove her to the bank, and some of her belongings were still in his vehicle when he left her there.

Cpl. M.W. Laney of the Maryland State Police encountered a female who said she'd been handed some items by a man who asked her to give them "to the girl at the bank with the cops," according to charging documents. Laney found Williams and arrested him after a brief struggle, and the sheriff's deputy later questioned the suspect about his visits to the bank.

"The defendant advised he was simply trying to get a loan," Gill wrote in a statement of probable cause. "The defendant denied entering the bank with any women. The defendant advised he was sitting with [the bank employee] filling out paperwork when on two separate occasions two different women unknown to him approached and sat down."

Also on Nov. 24, Williams reportedly took his wife's purse from her workplace at Mary H. Matula Elementary School in La Plata.

The principal sent a letter home with parents saying that a kindergarten teacher met her husband outside the building "to prevent him from coming into the school." However, the man went through a side door the teacher had left open, took her purse and ran away from the school.

"We have secured a no trespassing order against the man. The teacher did call the police to report the incident, and we are cooperating fully with police in the investigation," Timothy J. Rosin wrote in the letter.

Police responded for the incident, which was reported as a domestic dispute, at about 1:30 p.m., according to Diane Richardson, spokeswoman for the Charles County Sheriff's Office. She said the complainant met officers outside the school near the parking lot and told them her husband had come to the school and taken her purse, but had left before they arrived, Richardson said.

"We're still conducting an investigation, and charges are pending against Mr. Williams," Richardson said.

Williams was arrested on charges of kidnapping, forging a home-equity credit application and resisting arrest in St. Mary's County.

The next day, Williams was charged with committing a second-degree assault in the county jail in court papers alleging he shoved an inmate backward, causing his head to hit a bunk bed, during an argument over toilet paper.

Staff writer Bethany Rodgers contributed to this report.