She was a churchgoing single mom in Louisiana, owned a cleaning business, and played as an extra in a Tom Cruise movie. Now she’s one of Ascension Parish’s most wanted.
Police say Tondalynn Abraham, 36, has been on the lam since December, when she allegedly fired a stun gun on an employee’s neck, then forced him into the back of her pickup truck before pistol-whipping him and dumping him in a ditch.
Abraham is wanted on charges of aggravated kidnapping and aggravated battery over the bizarre abduction near Baton Rouge, WAFB reported.
Cops say the hardy cleaning lady and her hired hand, who is unnamed, got into a tiff while driving on the night of Saturday, Dec. 12. At some point, Abraham allegedly forced the man, who is a little older than her, to ride in the truck bed.
The man tried to flee, and she dragged him back to the vehicle, where she clobbered him with a handgun, the Ascension Parish Sheriff’s Office said.
“When you have a woman doing this to a man, that’s just kind of weird,” Allison B. Hudson, the sheriff’s public information officer, told The Daily Beast. “All we have is a picture of her. We don’t know if her physical build has changed. You can tell she was a muscular-type of woman and into fitness.”
“They have women that lift more than men nowadays,” the officer added. “We don’t know if that was the case or what.”
The employee eventually made his escape by jumping into a ditch on Alligator Bayou Road, where deputies found him with multiple cuts to his head, cops say.
Deputies say they chased Abraham’s truck as she high-tailed it away from the scene, but they lost sight of her. Police later found her vehicle abandoned nearby, the sheriff’s office said.
Authorities believe Abraham could still be in the Baton Rouge area, hiding out with the help of friends or relatives. Hudson said the U.S. Marshals Service is also on her trail.
“She doesn’t want us to find her, but we will find her. If it takes us a year, we will find her,” Hudson vowed.
Police haven’t released details on the alleged victim, who worked with Abraham for only a short time, for his own protection, Hudson said. The officer said it appeared Abraham “seeks out” people who are of a older age range so “she can take advantage” of them.
Still, it’s unclear exactly what caused Abraham to apparently go off the deep end that day. It had something to do with “money…him not getting paid for a job or something,” Hudson told The Daily Beast.
Hudson said cops especially want to nab the tough mother because she has a son who is not enrolled in elementary school.
“We don’t think she would harm anybody else,” Hudson said. “Because her child is not in school, that’s our main concern, for this child’s safety.”
A review of Abraham’s Facebook profile shows she was proud of launching her firm, Core Clean, and coming from Oakland, Calif. She posted photos of waxed floors at a gym and her cleanings of a piano studio. Another image shows her tidying a crystal chandelier at someone’s estate.
In August 2013, she penned a post thanking God for “[lacing] my boots the hard way in the streets of Oakland.”
“I have been through so much bad and good things over the years,” Abraham wrote. “Today I stand a strong, proud, Black Mother a CEO of my own business.”
A number for Core Clean is disconnected, and messages left for Abraham and her relatives were not returned.
Meanwhile, Abraham belonged to Facebook groups including New York Models, RPM Casting, and Film and Television Auditions.
In April 2013, the cleaning maven was tagged in a photo of background performers in “Oblivion,” and commented, “See we had fun shooting that film. I walk away with a family!”
Among inspirational quotes and photos of her young son, Abraham shared selfies of her Sunday best and wrote that she was heading to church—not exactly the hallmark of a crazed kidnapper wanted by police.
Even readers on WAFB’s Facebook page appeared skeptical.
“She looks so sweet and innocent... Wow,” one woman wrote.
“How could a woman so small overpower a man enough to pistol whip him,” another female commenter said. “This is BS I don't know her but its more to this story than what their saying!”
Abraham doesn’t appear to have a major criminal record, either.
The East Baton Rouge Parish Clerk of Court’s Office said there’s a bench warrant for Abraham stemming from an April 2015 arrest, when she was allegedly caught driving with a suspended license.
Hudson says deputies are still grappling with a motive, months after the alleged kidnapping.
“I think it was mostly [that] she was in power. She had that power moment,” Hudson told The Daily Beast, adding that her male employee “was like, ‘I’m fed up with it. I’m not going to let you do this to me.' She probably did snap. It was probably a situation like that."