Marin Headlands Kidnapping Case Dismissed

The strange case of Lark Ann Freeman is over.

Marin County Superior Court Judge Andrew E. Sweet dismissed the case late last week against the 36-year-old Fairfield woman. Freeman had been charged with kidnapping and false imprisonment after law-enforcement officers said they stopped the U-Haul truck she was driving in the Marin Headlands on Dec. 31 and found three men locked in the back.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Barry Borden said his office was forced to ask for the dismissal because the alleged kidnapping victims could not be located.

“They were homeless folks and did not give us accurate contact information,” he said.

The outcome is nothing new for Freeman—since 1999 she’s been a defendant in several Solano County criminal cases that have ended in dismissal. But this particular case might win the Oddball Prize.

According to Golden Gate National Recreation Area spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet, it all began when a park ranger on the east side of the Headlands observed the U-Haul truck driven by Freeman driving erratically. The truck then entered the Baker-Barry Tunnel against a red light, she said.

“The ranger pursued and began trying to pull the vehicle over,” said Picavet. “The driver did not stop, so he called for backup.”

Units from the Sausalito Police and the Marin County Sheriff responded. After leading officers on a chase out to the coast, Freeman finally stopped in a parking lot by Bird Island Overlook.

“The driver refused to get out, and the two passengers in the cab also were not getting out,” said Picavet. “Finally, an elderly gentleman came out of the cab—he said he told the driver he had to use the bathroom—and let law-enforcement officers know that he was being held against his will, as was the other passenger in the cab, who was the driver’s aunt. And he said there were three men in the back of the truck also being held against their will.”

Tactical-team officers eventually managed to release the men from the back of the truck and take Freeman into custody, Picavet said.

The elderly man said Freeman had lured him into the truck with a promise of cigarettes in Berkeley and had offered the other men work moving furniture, she said.

“She had some of her aunt’s furniture in the back of the truck,” said Picavet, “but when the men got in there, they realized they couldn’t get out.”

Freeman reportedly told law enforcement officials that she thought the world was going to end in an earthquake that day. When the arresting officers asked Freeman what she was doing, she said she was “worried about the end of the world and was trying to prepare.”