Amherst woman confesses to fabricating abduction tale

AMHERST – A local woman who claimed to have been abducted from her home by a man and a male juvenile from New York state made the story up, authorities said Monday.

Kelley Eaton, 33, had warned a friend last Tuesday that she was in danger of being abducted, but at roughly noon that day left her Tannery Loop Road home voluntarily, according to Maine State Police Trooper Cliff Peterson.

The friend and Eaton’s husband called police at approximately 2 p.m. Sept. 4 after they went to the home she and her husband were sharing and found she was gone, Peterson said. All of Eaton’s personal items, such as her keys, had been left behind, he added.

“It did appear to be an abduction at the time,” Peterson said.

Eaton subsequently called her family from York County after state police pulled over Richard Puckett Sr., 44, and the boy in Saco as they were driving Puckett’s 1973 Chevrolet Nova south on the Maine Turnpike, Peterson said. He said the juvenile is a relative of Puckett but declined to specify how Puckett and the boy are related.

Eaton was driving south on the highway in a different car – a 2001 Ford Focus also owned by Puckett – and pulled off the turnpike when she saw police stopping the Chevrolet, he said. She called her family from a pay phone at a service station in the nearby town of Arundel and said she had been abducted, he added.

Police stopped Puckett after Eaton’s family had given them a description of his car, Peterson said. Puckett was a friend of Eaton’s family and was known to them, he added.

Peterson said Eaton initially insisted that a man had been in the Focus and forced her to drive. In fact, Eaton had been in the car with a female friend of Puckett’s and had not been forced to drive, the trooper said.

“Through subsequent interviews, she confessed the story was fabricated,” Peterson said. Eaton had had a previous relationship with Puckett, he added.

“She wanted to give the appearance of being abducted to her family and friends to save face,” he added. Peterson said police are likely to file charges against Eaton for making up the story.

Puckett and the juvenile were arrested Sept. 4 and taken to the state police barracks in Alfred, where they were later bailed.

It will be up to the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office to determine if the misdemeanor charges of criminal restraint filed against Puckett and the boy will be dropped, the trooper said.