Kidnapping charges have been filed against a man accused of holding a woman against her will while armed with a shotgun and strangling her, prompting a SWAT response near Marengo.
The McHenry County Sheriff’s Office responded around 6:20 a.m. Friday to Lehman’s Lakeside RV Resort, 19609 Harmony Road in unincorporated Marengo.
Dispatchers received a call for a well-being check on a woman at the RV camp, according to police radio traffic.
The caller reported there were guns in the trailer and the woman had previously been threatened by her boyfriend.
Deputies did not make contact with the woman and left the area after believing the woman was not at the location.
Police radio traffic indicated deputies were called back to the location around 8:50 a.m. after receiving a report that the woman was indeed at the location and being threatened by the boyfriend, who was armed with a gun.
The sheriff’s office sent an alert early Friday afternoon saying there was a heavy police presence at the scene. The sheriff’s office’s SWAT team also responded.
Sheriff’s officials said the situation was “resolved” after the offender, Stephen A. Dracousis, 29, of Aurora, was taken into custody.
“There is no threat to the public,” the alert said, calling the incident an “isolated domestic incident.”
Dracousis was charged with aggravated kidnapping while armed, kidnapping, aggravated domestic battery, aggravated unlawful restraint, possession of a firearm with a revoked FOID and violation of pre-trial release for possessing a firearm.
A criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges Dracousis kidnapped the victim by “knowingly and secretly” confining the woman, who is in her 20s, inside his trailer residence while armed with a firearm.
The complaint said Dracousis strangled the woman by applying pressure to her throat with his hands, causing her breathing to be impeded.
Dracousis unlawfully possessed a shotgun while having a revoked Firearm Owner’s Identification card, the complaint said.
At the time of the incident, Dracousis was on pre-trial release for another aggravated domestic battery case out of DeKalb County involving the same victim.
The McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office filed a petition to detain Dracousis pending trial in the McHenry County Jail.
McHenry County Judge Cynthia Lamb granted the petition during a court hearing on Saturday.