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Click or flick across the above image for a map of the horror ordeal.
A young Victorian woman was tied-up, stabbed and bashed in a horrific 12-hour ordeal that ended when, with a fractured neck, she walked into the Koetong Hotel to get help.
Detective Leading Sen-Constable Aaron Ibbott, of Wodonga police, said the 20-year-old was in her home when she answered a knock at her front door at 1.30am on Saturday.
It will be alleged her former partner, in a psychosis from ice and the prescription drug Xanax, forced his way in, assaulted her, bound her hands and feet with wire and dragged her to his car.
Sen-Constable Ibbott said her cries for help could be heard at the eastern end of the street.
She was allegedly assaulted repeatedly over the next 1½ hours, he said.
“She was bashed senseless.”
She was stabbed five times in her legs with a 20-centimetre kitchen knife as they drove along the Murray Valley Highway towards Tallangatta.
The man held one knife to her throat and had another in his other hand as he drove.
Near the Koetong Hotel, the driver lost control on a bend and the car rolled down a 30-metre embankment near a stream.
The woman fractured her neck and lost consciousness.
“He’s dragged her out of the car and covered the car with branches,” Sen-Constable Ibbott said.
The woman regained consciousness at 2.30pm, almost 13 hours later, on a sand bar near the stream with her former partner lying nearby.
She managed to get up and walk to the Koetong Hotel where publican Jennie Vinge sat inside talking with family.
The woman told them she had been bashed and asked if she could use the phone.
She wore pyjama shorts, she was sunburnt and blood had dried all over her.
“She looked like she had been dragged through the dirt and the mud,” Ms Vinge said.
“There were marks on her like she had been tied up ... she had a swollen lip, black eye, they looked like stab wounds on her leg.”
They sat her on a chair and kept talking to her to keep her conscious while waiting for paramedics and police.
Ms Vinge’s son ran down the embankment where he found the man lying by the creek.
Sen-Constable Ibbott said both were taken to Albury Base Hospital. The woman’s injuries were serious but not life-threatening and the man, who was placed under police guard, sustained minor injuries.
He was taken into custody on Sunday afternoon.
Wodonga detectives charged a 31-year-old Albury man with aggravated burglary, false imprisonment, intentionally cause serious injury, threats to kill, conduct likely to cause death or serious injury and other assault offences.
He was remanded in custody on Monday morning and will face the Wodonga Magistrates’ Court on January 8.
Sen-Constable Ibbott asked anyone who heard the woman’s cries for help, witnessed the incident on Lawrence Street or saw a silver Nissan Navara D22 twin cab utility between 1.30am and 3am to phone police on (02) 6049 2600 or Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
He said information could be given anonymously.