UPDATED: 3 p.m.
PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Police have charged a man they say is responsible for three attempted abductions of women in Lower Merion, Pennsylvania, and Cherry Hill, New Jersey within the past month.
Kent William Powe, 58, was arrested at his house in Collingdale, located in Delaware County, on Thursday. He faces several charges, including attempted kidnapping, false imprisonment, robbery and illegal possession of a handgun.
Powe is accused of trying to kidnap three women on separate occassions. In the first incident, on Nov. 4, police say he put a gun to a woman’s back at The Royal Athena apartment complex in Bala Cynwyd.
Ten days later, police say he knocked a woman to the ground in the garage at the Plaza Grande Apartments in Cherry Hill. She screamed, and he ran away. At the same apartment complex on Nov. 20, police say Powe ordered a woman at gunpoint to go with him to the parking garage. She broke free when he popped the trunk of his car.
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All three women got away, and none of the incidents led to serious physical harm or damage.
According to charging documents, investigators tracked Powe down to his Collingdale home by tracing video footage from the Bala Cynwyd apartment complex. Video shows a man, believed to be Powe, putting on gloves and holding duct tape as he gets on the elevator with a woman. When she refuses his orders, he runs off.
Police were able to piece together footage to indetify his car and license plate. They matched the car to his PennDOT photo, and they say that photo matches the man in the video as well as the description of a man involved in two similar incidents in Cherry Hill.
The complaint also says Powe’s criminal record goes back to 1978. His most recent conviction was in 2008. He was sentenced to 8½ to 17 years in prison for aggravated assault and related charges.
Powe is held on $1 million bail in Montgomery County. He has not been charged in New Jersey yet.