'I felt so stupid:' Ohio woman testifies during New Kensington man's kidnapping trial

Angela Gregory told a Westmoreland County jury on Tuesday she wasn’t sure she would ever return to her Ohio home to be with her three children while being held captive in the basement of a New Kensington home in late 2022 by a man she met online only months earlier.

Steven Daniel Best Jr., 41, is charged with kidnapping, robbery and simple assault in connection with the incident.

Prosecutors contend he used his bulk — he stands 6 feet, 9 inches tall and more than a foot taller than his accuser — to intimidate and prevent Gregory, 42, from leaving the home after an apparent argument following their third in-person date.

Best, she told jurors, confined her to a basement for about three hours before she sweet-talked him with declarations of love and promised to continue their relationship in order to convince him to let her go.

“I had a feeling I wasn’t going to make it out of there,” Gregory testified. “I wasn’t going out without a fight. I tried climbing over a railing but he pulled me back. I couldn’t overpower him because I was so much smaller.”

Gregory described herself as a single mother who had recently decided to return to dating when she met Best through social media in the fall of 2022. They had an instant connection, she said, felt comfortable meeting him in person and in early December 2022 drove about an hour from her Hubbard City home in eastern Ohio to meet him.

Over the next two weeks they had two dates at his New Kensington home.

“It was very nice and I couldn’t wait to see him again,” she testified.

Their third date on Dec. 17, 2022 started out well until Best became upset over her decision to drive home the next day, she told jurors.

“It took a turn. I planned to leave by 11 a.m. because my daughter’s birthday was two days earlier and we had plans for dinner. He didn’t want me to leave, so I stayed another hour. Then he started to get irate when I said I wanted to leave,” Gregory testified. “He said I was selfish and it wasn’t fair I was leaving.

”I tried to open the door but he closed it, closed the blinds and turned the light switch off. My heart dropped and I knew this wasn’t right.”

She told jurors Best blocked the front and rear doors as she tried to flee and shut a door on her arm as she reached to get outside. Best was further angered as she pleaded with his roommate for help, forced her downstairs into a basement and sat on the stairway and refused to allow her to leave, she said.

Gregory testified Best forcefully took her cellphone when she tried to call the police. Only after she spent about two hours “telling him what he wanted to hear” she was allowed to leave. She said Best then forced her to drive to a local convenience store, buy him tobacco and then return him home before she drove back to Ohio.

“I just wanted to get home and hug my kids. I felt so stupid and it was my fault. How could I be that stupid,” Gregory testified.

Prosecutors said Best made dozens of calls, and sent of dozens messages, texts and videos — several that included threats — to Gregory over the next several days before she made a report to police in Ohio and New Kensington.

Assistant Public Defender Mike Garofalo told jurors Gregory’s story does not add up.

“If she was so scared, so terrified, why give him a ride to Sheetz and back home. She left the area and didn’t report this until two days later,” Garofalo said in his opening statement to the jury.

Gregory, who is expected to be the lone witness to testify in the trial, is scheduled to return to the witnesses stand Wednesday.