{"id":42871,"date":"2025-11-11T20:40:06","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:40:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/42871\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T20:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:40:06","slug":"wptv-speaks-with-woman-held-hostage-by-neighbor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/42871\/","title":{"rendered":"WPTV speaks with woman held hostage by neighbor"},"content":{"rendered":"

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 WPTV’s Tyler Hatfield spoke with a Port St. Lucie woman who’s feeling lucky to be alive after being held hostage by her neighbor<\/a> on Monday. <\/p>\n

We went back to Tropical East neighborhood today, where Suzanne Rothermel told us 62-year-old Paul Maraio ran inside her home Monday afternoon, told her to shut the garage door and then took her phone.<\/p>\n

3 dead, including suspect, in Port St. Lucie double homicide<\/p>\n

She says Maraio admitted to shooting two other neighbors, then ordered her around the house while he helped himself to her fridge for food and drinks.<\/p>\n

Rothermel says at one point, Maraio said he just got evicted from his home across the street. <\/p>\n

\u201cI always said someday he\u2019s going to blow, but we never thought it would be this bad,” she said. <\/p>\n

After about three hours, she says Maraio let her leave with her dog, Penny. Officers quickly pulled her to safety. <\/p>\n

“I could be dead. I could be dead. He could, he could have just turned on me in a second,” she said. <\/p>\n

Rothermel says Maraio went back inside. Police say he later shot himself in the chest. <\/p>\n

“I’m the luckiest person in the world right now,” said Rothermel. <\/p>\n

She is staying with her sister for the time being. <\/p>\n

Investigators have still not released the names of the two men killed. <\/p>\n

Rothermel tells us she knew the men \u2014 and they were wonderful people and neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. \u2014 WPTV’s Tyler Hatfield spoke with a Port St. Lucie woman who’s feeling lucky…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42872,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[15237,28220,171,173,172,28221],"class_list":["post-42871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-hostage","tag-paul-maraio","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-tropical-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42871\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}