Justice Sentencing next month for fabricating story of kidnapping

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DON MACPHERSON
canadaeast news service

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FREDERICTON - A Noonan woman who made up a kidnapping story to explain a sudden trip to Toronto last summer spoke briefly about the incident Monday.

Marcia Lynette Simmons, 44, pleaded guilty in Burton provincial court to a charge that she engaged in public mischief between Aug. 9-15.

That's when she caused police officers in New Brunswick and Toronto to conduct an investigation into her kidnapping when she knew no such crime had been committed.

Simmons barely contained her emotions in court Monday when she elected to be tried in provincial and entered her guilty plea.

Her sentencing was set over to Dec. 21 to allow for a pre-sentence report.

No explanation was offered as to why Simmons travelled to Toronto from New Brunswick or why she falsely reported she'd been forced to drive there by an armed assailant who didn't exist.

It's expected some if not all of those details will come to light during her sentencing hearing next month.

As she left the Burton courthouse Monday, a tearful Simmons spoke briefly with reporters but still offered no answers to those questions.

"It's just not something I want to talk about," she said. "I've never been in this situation before."

She thanked family members and friends for supporting her and accompanying her to court Monday.

Simmons was reported missing to the RCMP on Aug. 8 but turned up safe in Toronto on Aug. 9.

She told police, first in Toronto and later in New Brunswick, that she'd been kidnapped.

Simmons initially told officers she'd gone to a campground near Woodstock when a tattooed man armed with a handgun hopped into her SUV and told her to drive to Toronto.

She later confessed that she made up the abduction story, noting she drove all the way to Toronto by herself voluntarily.

Simmons didn't tell police why she did so or why she made up the story.