Survivor relieved as kidnapper sentenced to prison
A woman who was kidnapped at gunpoint said she’s relieved her attacker is off the streets.
Kyle Murphy was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison, followed by 1.5 years in a county jail and five years of parole.
The attack happened near Woodmen Hills Drive and Velvet Antler Way on June 1, 2014.
Charlene Mattice, who was 19 years old at the time, was riding her bicycle when an SUV pulled up behind her. Murphy got out of the car, punched Mattice in the face, and then forced her into his SUV at gunpoint. Mattice managed to escape, jumping out of the moving vehicle.
“I had tunnel vision for sure,” Mattice told KRDO NewsChannel 13. “I didn’t look at anything else. I just ran.”
Mattice said she was pleased with the sentence and looks forward to moving past the incident. In her statement to the court, Mattice described how her life has changed since the kidnapping. She said she suffers from anxiety attacks and sometimes sleeps with knives or tools nearby to give herself a sense of safety.
Despite her struggle to cope, Mattice said she was glad it was her who was attacked and not someone else.
“I’m very glad it was me because if it was someone who was a teenager or even just a young woman who didn’t know what to do and didn’t know how to react and didn’t have that fight-or-flight instinct, it could have gone a lot worse for them,” Mattice said.
Though prosecutors could not prove Murphy’s motive for kidnapping Mattice, they pointed to recent Internet searches he conducted which included searches about rape and having sex with a dead body.
Members of Murphy’s family also spoke before the judge handed down a sentence, saying prosecutors unjustly painted Murphy to be a monster.
Murphy’s dad said he believed the attack was drug-induced and isolated.
Mattice said she hopes her survival story helps other women be prepared in case of an attack.
“Don’t get to the second location,” Mattice said. “Fight for your life. In my opinion, I would rather die trying than to be hurt that way.”
Murphy will also serve time for two indecent exposure cases that happened in the months prior to the kidnapping.
