The woman’s attempt to report a collision ended in an abduction, a highway pursuit and two consecutive 13-year prison terms.
PUEBLO, Colo. — Grace Dotson had stopped for a crash and was trying to call 911 when a man involved in the collision forced his way into her vehicle. That brief roadside decision began a four-hour kidnapping that crossed several Colorado counties and has now ended with a 26-year prison sentence.
The sequence was central to the case against Shane McSwane, 29, who pleaded guilty June 12 to second-degree kidnapping and attempted aggravated robbery. A Pueblo County judge sentenced him to 13 years for each offense and ordered the terms to run consecutively. Prosecutors said the convictions were Class 4 felonies designated as crimes of violence. McSwane must serve 85% of the sentence before he can become eligible for parole, according to the district attorney’s office.
Officials said the initial crash occurred May 25, 2025, near the junction of Interstate 70 and Interstate 225 in Aurora. Dotson saw the collision and stopped. There is no indication in the official sentencing release that she knew McSwane before that encounter. As she attempted to notify emergency dispatchers, McSwane entered her vehicle by force and took control. The person who had paused to report an emergency was suddenly the person at the center of a much larger emergency.
McSwane drove away with Dotson still inside, taking her from the Denver metropolitan area toward southern Colorado. Prosecutors said he operated the car erratically and traveled in multiple directions along Interstate 25. Dotson could not freely leave. The official record released to the public does not provide every location visited during the four hours, the precise speed of the vehicle or a full account of what happened inside. It does establish that the forced trip continued long enough for relatives to become frantic and begin tracking her phone.
Communication during the abduction was limited and unusual. McSwane sometimes allowed Dotson to answer calls from her family, the district attorney’s office said. Local reporting indicated that she also sent a short message asking her mother for help. Her boyfriend understood from a conversation that she was in danger. Dotson’s relatives could see her phone moving south, but the same technology that showed the route could not stop the vehicle. They later told the court that watching the location change was part of the terror of the experience.
The incident shifted again after the car reached Pueblo County. Deputies were investigating a reported robbery at a convenience store in Colorado City when they received information about a vehicle that matched Dotson’s car. The match connected a local call to the kidnapping that had begun hours earlier and more than 100 miles to the north. Deputies located the vehicle on Interstate 25 traveling toward Pueblo and tried to stop it, according to the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office.
McSwane refused to stop and changed direction, driving south as deputies followed, officials said. The presence of a kidnapping victim inside made the flight more than a standard attempt to arrest a driver. Officers were trying to prevent the vehicle from continuing while avoiding further harm to Dotson. The public releases do not reveal all tactical discussions made during the pursuit, but they identify the measures that ultimately worked after the car entered Huerfano County.
Huerfano County deputies placed stop sticks on the roadway, deflating the vehicle’s tires. A Pueblo County deputy then carried out a Pursuit Intervention Technique that brought the vehicle to a stop. Officers arrested McSwane and removed Dotson from the car. Authorities described her as safely rescued. The intervention ended a chain of events that had started with an ordinary emergency call and grown into an abduction, an alleged convenience-store robbery and a cross-county pursuit.
For Dotson, the later sentencing required another difficult decision: speaking in court with McSwane present. District Attorney Kala Beauvais said Dotson displayed remarkable strength and courage during that appearance. Several relatives also addressed the court. Prosecutors said they described the abduction as the worst four hours of their lives. Their statements allowed the judge to hear about fear that did not fit neatly into the formal names of the offenses, including the strain of receiving calls from Dotson while knowing she remained confined.
The family’s remarks also complicated the expected tone of a sentencing hearing. Dotson and her relatives said they hoped McSwane would work to become a better man by the time he is released, according to the district attorney’s office. Their expression of compassion did not prevent the court from imposing a lengthy sentence, and it did not recast the kidnapping as anything less than a violent felony. It showed that the family could support accountability while still asking McSwane to use his years in custody for change.
McSwane’s guilty pleas gave the case a resolution without a jury trial. A plea is a conviction, distinguishing the final outcome from the allegations that followed his arrest. The two charges also carried separate punishments. By making the 13-year terms consecutive rather than concurrent, the court doubled the amount announced for either individual count. The official statements do not include a transcript explaining every factor the judge weighed, and they do not reproduce the complete plea agreement.
The sentencing announcement also reflects the number of institutions involved after Dotson placed the initial call. Emergency dispatchers received information from the Denver-area event. Relatives tried to keep contact with her and followed her location. Pueblo County deputies tied a vehicle description to a local robbery report. Huerfano County deputies helped disable the car. Investigators assembled the case, and the 10th Judicial District Attorney’s Office prosecuted the charges that produced the final convictions.
Both the prosecutor and sheriff’s office credited that cooperation. Beauvais thanked law enforcement partners and said officials were profoundly grateful that Dotson survived. The sheriff’s office praised its detectives and deputies and recognized Huerfano County personnel for helping stop the vehicle. Such statements come from agencies involved in the case, but the confirmed result supports their central point: information and action passed between jurisdictions until officers were able to reach Dotson.
The case’s most striking contrast remains the distance between its beginning and end. Dotson stopped because she saw a crash and tried to summon help. She was then carried across a large section of Colorado before others could help her. More than a year afterward, she stood in court and spoke about that experience as McSwane accepted convictions and a 26-year sentence. The criminal proceeding is now resolved, while McSwane’s eventual parole prospects will depend on the statutory eligibility requirement and later decisions by corrections authorities.
Dotson and her relatives left the hearing having thanked the officers who brought her home and having placed their account on the court record. McSwane is expected to remain in the Colorado Department of Corrections under the sentence imposed in Pueblo. The final judgment cannot undo the four hours that followed her attempt to call 911, but it assigns legal responsibility for the kidnapping and the attempted aggravated robbery to which McSwane pleaded guilty.
Author note: Last updated July 13, 2026.