EXCLUSIVE: Struggling with loss, she moved out on her own at 18, got a job and did her best to make ends meet – until Daunte Wright showed up in her Minnesota living room with a handgun and tried to steal from her.
"Everybody feels so horrible for this man, but no one takes the time to see how horrible of a person he was," says a Minnesota woman who police allege Wright choked and robbed at gunpoint.
At 15, a concussion ended her dreams of a soccer career.
Still in her teens, her father died. And she found out she needed brain surgery. After that, she said, she fell in with an abusive boyfriend.
By 20, she kicked him out and let a friend sleep in the living room of her one-bedroom apartment to help pay rent.
And then a high school acquaintance brought Wright over, and he allegedly shoved a pistol in her face, choked her and threatened her life in a failed attempt to steal $820 she meant to give to her landlord one day in December 2019.
"What just blows my mind is that someone can literally strangle someone to where they can’t breathe, they can’t even gasp for air, because their airways are getting crushed," she told Fox News Digital in her first news interview. "No one should have to go through something like that and then have to accept death at 20 years old – looking into somebody’s eyes while they are holding a loaded gun to you."
The victim, now 22, asked Fox News Digital to withhold her name, although she was comfortable speaking about the incident on camera and said it was OK to show her face.
Wright’s friend, Emajay Driver, had reached out to her over Snapchat. They decided to hang out at her apartment with her roommate.
Two young men arrived and the group drank alcohol and smoked marijuana. As the night went on, they got to talking, and she told the visitors about her abusive ex. They seemed supportive, she said.
"We had started talking, and [Wright] said that any man who puts his hands on a woman and abuses them deserves to rot in jail," she said.
That discussion left her feeling comfortable around the two – for a little while, she said.
When the women got tired and asked Wright and Driver to leave, they said they had to call a ride.
At one point, the duo said it came, according to their victim. But they went out and came back with food: "DoorDash or something like that," she said.
"And then I offered them, ‘OK, do you need ketchup?’ Because they're eating," she said. "So I was being nice, and I was going to get them water, doing what a host would do."
"Do you need a plate? And then I was like, ‘What about the ride?’" she recounted. "‘Oh, that person's not giving us a ride.’"
The snow was coming down hard, she said, so she let them stay over.
They kept their distance and behaved appropriately, she noted, making no advances overnight.
"I was like, ‘Wow, he's respectful,’" she said. "I'm thinking all these guys are actually nice."
That perception changed the next morning.
Her roommate handed her half of their rent money, she said. She put it with her part in her wallet – but for some reason, she said, she got the idea to hide it somewhere else.
"Something told me to put my money in my bra," she said. "I pulled it out of my wallet, the $820, and I put it in my bra. I didn't put it directly down. I put it to the side, under and tucked in, just because if I was trying to rob somebody, it would be a lot harder… what I thought would be the safest spot."
But Driver might've seen through the doorway, she said.
Her roommate left for work, and she got ready to go to her own job as Wright and Driver lingered in her living room, she said.
Wright said he had to go outside for a second, according to the criminal complaint. That’s when the victim believes he got a gun from an unnamed accomplice. He came back in and used her bathroom – and she said she heard the water running for an unusually long amount of time.
She said she went into the bathroom after Wright came out and noticed he’d emptied an entire bottle of hand sanitizer – and found a washcloth that reeked of rubbing alcohol. Possibly because of an urban legend that claims wiping down a gun with hand sanitizer will prevent fingerprints from being left on the surface.
He also told Driver they should "hit some stains," according to court documents, which authorities explained is slang for robbing people.
While in the bathroom, Wright took a short selfie video that shows himself playing with a black and silver handgun. Police later found it on his phone, according to an arrest warrant, and Fox News Digital obtained it exclusively earlier this year.
When the victim went to leave for work, Wright and Driver blocked her, according to court documents and her own recollection of the m... (Read more)
Submitted 841 days ago
Latest News