{"id":43086,"date":"2025-11-11T23:57:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T23:57:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/43086\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T23:57:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T23:57:21","slug":"woman-held-hostage-by-neighbor-in-port-st-lucie-community-says-shes-luckiest-person-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/43086\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman held hostage by neighbor in Port St. Lucie community says she&#8217;s &#8216;luckiest person in the world&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">WPTV&#8217;s Tyler Hatfield spoke with a Port St. Lucie woman who&#8217;s feeling lucky to be alive after <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wptv.com\/news\/treasure-coast\/region-st-lucie-county\/port-st-lucie\/port-st-lucie-police-investigating-shooting-residents-asked-to-shelter-in-place\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">being held hostage by her neighbor<\/a> on Monday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">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<p class=\"text | article-text\">She says he lit his own phone on fire. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WATCH: Port St. Lucie woman says she feels lucky to be alive<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">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. Rothermel says he was &#8220;sweating like crazy,&#8221; and at one point demanded she tell him she loves him, which she did not do. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rothermel says Maraio told her he just got evicted from his home across the street. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cI always said someday he\u2019s going to blow, but we never thought it would be this bad,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">After about three hours, she says Maraio let her leave with her dog, Penny. Officers quickly pulled her to safety. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;I could be dead. I could be dead. He could, he could have just turned on me in a second,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">WATCH: Suspect pronounced dead in double homicide<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rothermel says Maraio went back inside. Police say he later shot himself in the chest. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;I&#8217;m the luckiest person in the world right now,&#8221; said Rothermel. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">She is staying with her sister for the time being. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Investigators have still not released the names of the two men killed. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Rothermel tells us she knew the men \u2014 and they were wonderful people and neighbors. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">&#8220;They didn&#8217;t deserve any of this,&#8221; she said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2025 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WPTV&#8217;s Tyler Hatfield spoke with a Port St. Lucie woman who&#8217;s feeling lucky to be alive after being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43087,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[27956,27954,12288,171,173,172,27955],"class_list":["post-43086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-18-year-old-convicted-of-rape-related-charges","tag-no-jail-time","tag-oklahoma","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-rape-related-charges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43086","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=43086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}