Woman tricks carjacker into handing her knife at gas station in Humble

HUMBLE, Texas (KTRK) -- A woman says she successfully thwarted a carjacking attempt by tricking the suspect.

It happened on Monday afternoon at a gas station on Kenswick Drive in the Humble area.

The victim, who only wants to be identified as Robyn, had stopped to put air in her tires.

Surveillance video shows her inflating the rear right tire while the suspect walks around her to the driver's side.

"I saw a shadow out of the peripheral of my eye," Robyn said.

When she reached the driver's seat, she said she saw the man the Precinct 4 Constable's Office identifies as Shadrach Iyere preparing to drive away.

Robyn said she reached the window and grabbed onto the interior door handle.

"He just immediately starts punching me. He says, 'I'm gonna stab you if you don't let go,'" she said.

Video shows the two tussling as the suspect throws the SUV into reverse. He reverses a second time until he ends up in the median on Huntermoor Circle. At some point, he strikes a brick sign. Robyn hangs onto her vehicle throughout.

"Even if I let go at this point, I could still get run over by my own car," she said.

Instead, she devised a plan.

The key to her self-defense is a knife she carries in her purse. But her purse was out of reach on the floorboard.

"I said, 'If you just give it to me, I can give you the money.' So he gave me my purse and I knew that I had a knife in my purse," she said.

Robyn gets her purse and quickly pulls her knife, sending the suspect scrambling.

"He blows me a kiss. And he's just grinning, smiling like it was nothing," Robyn said.

Enraged, Robyn says she begins following the suspect in her SUV.

"I was just flagging people down, asking them, 'Hey, can you stop? Can you call the police?'" she said.

Deputies finally capture him in a nearby neighborhood and take him into custody on a robbery-bodily injury charge.

Records show Iyere was already on deferred adjudication for a 2020 stalking charge out of San Marcos.

"It does appear that the defendant's current supervision has not deterred the defendant from engaging in criminal behavior, necessitating a high bond," Magistrate Renette Franklin said.

Franklin ended up denying prosecutors' request for a $50,000 bond and set Iyere's bond at $20,000, which he quickly posted.

With Iyere out of jail, Robyn fears she'll once again have to rely on herself for defense.

"Moving forward, the plan is pretty much just to buy more guns and actually walk with them," she said.

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