Brave Eyewitness Prevents Woman's Kidnapping by Defending Her from an Attacker

Last Thursday a Burlington Township resident was on his way home in the afternoon when he came across an incident that caused him to act. The man ended up being a hero because of his braveness.

It was an ordinary day for John Bishop, 54, when he left Cooper University Hospital after work. He then took the northbound exit off of Interstate 295 onto Route 73 where he planned to pick up some chemicals for his pool.

However, what he saw and heard took him by surprise. On Monday, Bishop explained: “When I first saw those arms come out of the bushes, it took a second to register.”

His instincts told him something wasn’t right and he quickly stopped his truck and reversed. In that same spot, he then heard a woman scream and without a second’s thought, he got out of his car and ran into the woods.

When he went a little deeper and walked down a hill he could hear a woman’s muffled screams. She was trying to fight off a man who had grabbed a hold of her while she was walking back to her car.

Bishop recalled what he did saying: “‘Hey, what are you doing? Get off of her,’ I yelled at him. ’Let me see your hands.” Instead of showing Bishop his hands the man, who was later identified as Donald Cramer Jr., 52, from Philadelphia, ran towards him.

Bishop tried to stop him by telling him he “had a gun in [my] back pocket — I didn’t — and he didn’t even listen.” Cramer tried to wrestle Bishop to the ground but he was able to pin the suspect down twice.

The suspect wiggled free on both occasions and Bishop picked up a stick to try to hit him as “he started to fall.” When the criminal fell the brave man grabbed the stick “and I kind of like stuck it in his shoulder blade really hard and used my weight to pin him to the ground.”

Bishop shared: “Nobody knew I was down there, and I wanted to get him up near the road, so I drug him by the arm and neck up the hill and threw him over the guardrail onto Route 73.”

Luckily three more people stopped and helped hold Cramer down until the police arrived. Speaking about the incident Bishop confessed: “I’ll be honest, I was scared.”

Despite the fear he was “glad” he got involved and wasn’t thinking about his own wellbeing. The victim sustained non-life-threatening injuries and was taken to a local area hospital, according to the police.

Bishop saved her from being kidnapped and sexually assaulted. The Mount Laurel Police Department was the one that arrested Cramer who didn’t know the woman he’d attacked.

The suspect was charged with kidnapping, criminal attempted sexual assault, aggravated assault, robbery, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose, terrorist threats, criminal restraint, and resisting arrest. Pending a detention hearing, Cramer is being held at Burlington County Jail.

Cramer has been suspected of being involved in more sexual assault cases. The police have asked that anyone with information to please contact Detective Craig McCoy of the Bordentown Criminal Investigation Office at 609-298-1171.

In a statement, the New Jersey State Police said:

“As troopers, we respond to a variety of calls everyday, and there are times when we must place our lives in jeopardy. Citizens are not necessarily held to this standard, but there are also times when good Samaritans step in and risk their lives in order to protect others. This was just the case when John Bishop intervened to save a female victim from an attempted sexual assault.”

Last Thursday, two Canadian women who are students aged 19 and 20 were kidnapped by gunmen outside a well-known nightspot in Kumasi, southern Ghana. The young women were in the country working as volunteers with an international charity.

On Wednesday, the women were finally rescued.