TARPON SPRINGS - Police are searching for a man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted a Holiday woman at knifepoint early Wednesday morning as she left a popular bar near the Sponge Docks.
Police said a white man in his 30s to 40s approached the woman, who is in her 20s, in the parking lot of The Bridge bar at 1056 N Pinellas Ave. The man, who police described as 5 feet 8 to 6 feet tall, with brown hair, a receding hairline and a medium build, came up behind the woman shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday, police said.
"He didn't show her a knife but he implied that he had one and forced her into her car," Tarpon Springs police Detective Barbara Templeton said.
The attacker then drove her car to an unknown remote spot in Tarpon Springs near a gravel and dirt road, Templeton said.
After he fled, the victim went to Helen Ellis Memorial Hospital and the police were called, Templeton said. The victim told police that she did not recognize her assailant but said she believed he had driven a pickup truck to the bar.
He was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark-colored, cotton long-sleeved shirt, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at (727) 938-2849.
