Charges: St. Paul Woman Held 4 Hostage At Gunpoint In Gas Station
ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) -- Charges filed Thursday accuse a St. Paul woman of holding four people hostage at gunpoint inside a gas station while demanding to speak to her father in federal prison.
The woman's mother, meanwhile, told police her father is not in prison and that the woman -- Kanisha Wiggins -- is unstable, a substance abuser and into "witchcraft and spiritual stuff," a criminal complaint states.
Kanisha Wiggins, 31, is charged with four counts of kidnapping. The complaint states she walked into the Speedway on Johnson Parkway Tuesday and threatened four people with a handgun.
Police managed to get all four hostages out safely.
Wiggins is a former employee, one of the hostages told police, and asked a current employee she knew for help when she walked into the station. When the two went to the back room, Wiggins pulled out a handgun and told the employee to send the store's customers away, the complaint states.
Wiggins gathered the four remaining people in the cash register area, and was yelling about how her father was falsely imprisoned, according to the complaint.
In an interview some time after the incident, Wiggins' mother said her father was "sitting right next to me," and that her daughter is often under the influence of alcohol and drugs. She told investigators Wiggins wasn't the same since returning from Tennessee in December.
At one point during the hostage situation, Wiggins sent one of the hostages out of the station to retrieve her phone. According to the complaint, Wiggins wanted to livestream the incident.
Wiggins allegedly told the hostage that if she did not come back with the phone, she would shoot one of the other hostages. According to the complaint, when the hostage left the station, she ran to police. A short time later, police heard a gunshot, but when they entered the store, no one was injured.
Police safely removed the other three hostages and found Wiggins in a storage room.
Wiggins is in custody.
