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Man accused of taking 16-year-old Crown Point girl to Arkansas faces nearly two dozen charges, records show

A St. John man accused of taking a 16-year-old Crown Point girl to Arkansas faces nearly two dozen charges including kidnapping, criminal confinement, stalking and domestic battery, records show.

Alexander Martin Curry-Fishtorn, 22, was charged Tuesday in Lake Superior Court with 17 felonies and four misdemeanors. On Aug. 16, he is accused of forcibly taking the girl to his friend’s house in Malvern, Arkansas, documents show.

He was hoping to hold her until she turned 18, when he felt prior charges he faced for violating a May 20 restraining order set up by her mother would be dropped, records state. Previously, Curry-Fishtorn was charged with felony stalking, intimidation while violating the restraining order, documents show.

Curry-Fishtorn was arrested in Arkansas on Sunday after authorities issued an Amber alert. The Post-Tribune is not naming the girl because she is a minor.

“We are extremely pleased that this teen was found safe,” Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez said in a statement Monday.

They met at a Crown Point U.S. Marines recruiting event in January 2019 where Curry-Fishtorn had asked for Snapchat contacts of prospective recruits, documents state. Within a week, he and the girl were dating, she later told police. The relationship turned abusive by March, she said in court documents.

He didn’t want her wearing shorts or makeup to look “provocative,” would go through her phone, see who she was texting, barring her from talking to other boys, including co-workers, documents state.

Wearing a black hat, glasses and hoodie, Curry-Fishtorn showed up at the Lake County Fair in early August while the girl was there with friends, documents state. When she got cut off in line and her friends went on a ride, he appeared, grabbed her arm, dragged her by her hair and took her behind the ride, saying she wasn’t following “their rules,” saying he was angry about her outfit, a court document said. Later on, he stabbed her in the thigh with a sewing needle; she later was treated for the wound at a hospital, records state.

While taking a friend home on Aug. 16 after her restaurant hostess shift, the girl’s car died just after she dropped her off, records show. Without a cellphone, she turned around to walk back to the house to call her mom. Within 20 feet from her car, she saw headlights with a car speeding down the block, documents said.

Curry-Fishtorn hit the brakes, got out and grabbed her by the arm to get into his car, records state.

“We gotta go,” he told her, court records said.

The girl said she was unable to unlock the front seat to get out, while in the back seat, he had “packed his whole life into the car,” documents allege. There appeared to be a gun in one of the back bags, records state.

“I have a gun, so don’t try anything,” he told her, according to charging documents.

They drove nearly 10 hours to Malvern, Arkansas, where Curry-Fishtorn had a military buddy he met at Camp Pendleton in California during his two-month Marine infantry training in March, records state.

The man, a U.S. Marine Corps reservist, said they could hide out at his house for a few days while Curry-Fishtorn figured out a plan. He helped him move his car into bushes in his backyard, out of public view, documents state. He said he thought the girl was 18, but discovered she was 16 when she and Curry-Fishtorn arrived around 9 a.m. Saturday, records state.

The friend was aware the girl’s mother had filed a restraining order against Curry-Fishtorn, who told him “things were bad in Indiana” and he couldn’t contact the girl, records show. The friend said he researched if Curry-Fishtorn and the girl could marry in Arkansas, but discovered she would need a parent’s consent.

Meanwhile, Curry-Fishtorn told the girl not to try escaping, but said everyone in Arkansas would be nice to her and he would “starve himself to make sure she was fed,” records show.

After eating, they bought black hair dye from a Walmart and paid the friend’s sister $10 to color the girl’s blonde hair “so she couldn’t be recognized,” documents state.

Curry-Fishtorn said he was looking where to go next, including North or South Dakota where there were rigs he could get a job (North Dakota) quickly without a background check, or head to a family vacation rental in Florida, charging documents state.

The girl feared she and her whole family were in danger, adding his plan to marry her was “crazy,” records state. During her time in Arkansas, she went along with Curry-Fishtorn’s plan, seeing there were four guns in the wall of his friend’s house, unsure if they were loaded.

Curry-Fishtorn’s sister later told police that he had been violent with her and once cocked a gun at their mother, records state. He was “volatile and angry,” she said in court documents.

His sister told police that if a September hearing for violating the restraining order didn’t go well, “there was a suicide pact in the works,” she said in charging documents.

The girl said she never had a suicide pact with Curry-Fishtorn, but was afraid he would kill her and himself, documents state. She told police he once put a gun to her head, then his, alternating, then asking her to hold a gun to his head, records show.

“I hope they keep him in prison for as long as they possibly can,” the girl said in court records.

The girl’s mother filed a 20-page restraining order against Curry-Fishtorn, which was granted on May 20, Lake Superior court records show, citing stalking and fear of physical harm.

Like in court documents, the woman said her daughter met him at a Crown Point Marine recruiting event in January, where she later trained weekly, hoping to join the service. Curry-Fishtorn was a Marine that helped with new recruits, the mother wrote.

In March, the woman was alarmed to find him sitting in her living room when returning 45 minutes after leaving for work. Curry-Fishtorn bolted out the door, then returned. He told the woman he struggled with “major anger issues” and the girl helps calm him, she wrote.

“Should I be scared of you? Are you going to hurt my daughter,” she told Curry-Fishtorn. “I asked him if he was in my place, he (said) he would call the police and have him arrested.”

As the relationship developed, the mom tried to stop her daughter from seeing him. During the spring, the girl admitted she snuck out several times between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. to see him, documents state.

Visiting her daughter at a hostess job, she was alarmed to find an Instagram live video was running on the teen’s phone “so he can watch her and know who she is talking to,” she wrote. She was also caught on Skype with him multiple times during school, a teacher told the mother.

In May, some relatives went to Curry-Fishtorn’s mother’s house to warn her about the relationship. His mother was “mortified,” saying her son said the girl was almost 18. She pledged to get her son to break it off, court documents said.