Updated: 7/21/2008 7:54:45 PM
An East Tennessee soldier missing since Friday from the Ft. Bliss army base in El Paso has been found alive, and her husband has been arrested.
Jeneesa Lewis was found late Sunday night. Police there tell reporters Lewis is talking with investigators. Her sister said she suffered stab wounds to her legs and had been beaten.
Lewis' husband, Clinton Lewis, was arrested and charged with aggravated kidnapping. He had been considered a "person of interest" in the case.
Jeneesa is from Hawkins County, and her family said she joined the Army and moved to Texas to get away from her husband.
The 29-year old mother of three did not show up for duty Friday at Ft. Bliss, the Army base where she was stationed.
Officers said they suspected foul play in Lewis' disappearance.
"I just pray to God my granddaughter is all right," Delores Pigeon said. "He said nobody would have her, that he'd kill her first. And that's what scares me the most is he'd kill her because he did say that."
Lewis' grandmother and sister say Lewis left her children with family last September to join the Army.
They say she felt like the Army would give her the opportunity to provide for them and to escape her husband.
Her family says Lewis has three children, including two daughters ages 7 and 9 as well as 4-year old Clinton, Jr., fathered by her current husband.
Pigeon said the couple lived with her for a time and that they'd been together for about seven years.
"She's always tried to make things better," Tammy Skelton said of her sister.
Despite her attempt to get away, Skelton says Lewis' husband followed her and controlled her. She describes him as jealous and even violent, especially if other men were involved.
"He couldn't handle her being around other men," Skelton said. "Anytime she was doing anything, she was supposedly messing around."
Her grandmother says Lewis even managed to get on base at Fort Lee, VA in March. However, she said Lewis didn't file any report because she was scared it could affect her military life.
"She said, 'Grandma, I was so scared," Pigeon explains. "I thought he was going to kill me."
Both women say he later found Lewis in Texas and added himself to her apartment lease.
"He wouldn't let her out of the house for nothing," Skelton said. "She was allowed to go to work and that was all."
On Friday, El Paso Police found signs of a struggle inside Lewis' apartment. The soldier and her truck were missing.
Skelton says her sister had tried to leave her husband again the day before. When Lewis left for work Wednesday, Skelton said she threw an envelope through the apartment window with money and a note. She hoped it would convince him to leave.
"She texted me Thursday and she was so happy he was gone," Skelton said.
Skelton said Lewis' husband told her he had left and was already 400 miles away.
"She had the police go with her back to the apartment Thursday and clear the apartment," Skelton said. "And she moved right back in. And I said, 'What if he comes back?'"
Despite Skelton's pleas to leave and stay somewhere else that night, she says her sister didn't. "I think he led her to believe he was gone," Skelton explained what she thinks happened. "I think he came back and I don't know from there, but I know he come back for her. I just hope she's alive and hope she can get away from him."
"I just want her to be ok," Pigeon said. "I just lost my mother and my husband, and now my granddaugher. That's more than I can take. I just pray for her."
Before Lewis was found, Skelton said she thought it was possible the couple was headed to Mexico, just 10 miles from their apartment, or back to East Tennessee.
"Let her go," Skelton said she would like to tell her sister's husband. "She's got a family and kids that love her and want her to be safe, and she deserves to be happy."
