In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, an ordinary request for a cigarette rapidly escalated into a perilous situation for Tina Williams.

“I was terrified to turn around, fearing he might shoot me in the back,” recounted Williams, who works as a cashier at the Quick Stop in Duncanville, near Tuscaloosa.

The incident unfolded on a Tuesday morning while Williams was taking her usual smoke break, sipping coffee nearly an hour into her shift at the store. As she relaxed on a makeshift bench, a truck approached.

“He didn’t seem like the kind of person who would do something like that,” Williams remarked.

The individual was later identified as Christopher Steven Herring, although at the time of the encounter, Williams had no idea who he was.

“Whenever I went to hand him the cigarette, he grabbed my arm and that’s when he pulled the gun up and started pointing it at my face,” she said.

For 10 minutes, Williams sat next to Herring in the car, all while he had a hand around her wrist and a finger on the trigger.

“I wouldn’t let him out of the car because I knew if he got out of the car, he could have more advantage over me,” she said. “I needed to keep him in.”

Williams pleaded for Williams to put down his gun down and let her go. Eventually, she was able to escape and call 911. Deputies with the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff’s Office reached her within a matter of minutes.

“I believe in God,” she said. “I think he was with me.”

Herring, 39, was later caught and charged with second-degree kidnapping.

Herring is being held at the Tuscaloosa County Jail and is awaiting a bond hearing.