Sports Illustrated - USA (2020-02)

48 SPORTS ILLUSTRATED

muffled screams escaped through

the cracked-open window and into

the frigid winter afternoon air.

That’s what drew attention to the blue

pickup truck, otherwise inconspicuous

in the grocery store’s side lot.

Wrights Corners is a hamlet within the towns

of Lockport and Newfane, 35 miles north of

Buffalo. Tops Friendly Market is in the bustling

part of town, just off a two-lane highway, past a

quiet stretch of modest ranches and colonials. Here

a man could wash his car, get insured, buy a case

of beer and order a Big Mac Extra Value Meal all

within a few hundred yards.

This is where James Moscato, a decorated po-

lice officer seven years out of the academy, found

himself last Feb.27, responding to a dispatch

about a distressed man in the back seat of a parked

vehicle. Moving closer, Moscato could see that the

guy’s neck was tied to his headrest with a length

of rope, his hands and feet bound with duct tape.

Snow piled on the windshield as Moscato pulled

out his knife to slice the bindings and bag it for

DNA evidence. The man in the truck was 60 years

old with sandy hair, hazel eyes and a goatee. He

told Moscato how he’d been kidnapped two days

earlier by two men, robbed of the $16,000 in cash

he’d been carrying and forced to drive around the

area—everywhere from Rochester to Lewiston—

while the captors plotted their next move. He told

of his first night in captivity, sleeping in the hallway

of a stash house with a cap pulled over his eyes,

how he couldn’t risk running even when he was

sure his captors had fallen asleep, so certain was

he that they’d shoot him. The second night, he

said, they’d discarded him at the grocery store,

a good 30 minutes north of his home in North

Tonawanda. He might have known one of his two

assailants from work—Tim, maybe? But he wasn’t

sure, and he didn’t have a last name. The other

guy? No clue. But he figured they were ducking

security cameras based on their erratic movements

outside the grocery.

During winters in this part of the state, the lion’s

share of policework is devoted to cars sliding off

the road. A kidnapping case like this would require

resources from all over the county: a forensic team,

a fingerprint tech, a video unit to document the

scene. They’d probably have to borrow investiga-

tors from two towns up the road, a long drive in

bad weather. Moscato’s adrenaline spiked. This

was why he left a desk job to join the force. Days

like today.

As the man’s account of the abduction went

on, though, it only got stranger. He’d been run-

ning a big-money Super Bowl pool at work, he

explained, and he still owed a few people money.

Lots of money. That’s where all this trouble started,

he said. Why things got out of hand.

And so began one of the most bizarre kidnapping

T

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IN TOO DEEP

When Brandel

(above) went

missing, coworkers

went looking for

their payouts.