The sophomore nursing student was abducted Thursday morning from her campus apartment by 28-year-old Tremayne M. Rodrigue of St. James, the man with whom she’d been in a troubled three-year relationship. It was the type of ordeal her mother long feared would happen.

"I would go to church and say 'I am going to pray for her,’ " said the girl’s mother, Louise Preyan, a postal worker."I told her I have kept asking the Lord to get you out of this relationship."

The prayers were answered -- in dramatic fashion -- after Rodrigue allegedly took Anysia Preyan by force from her apartment Thursday morning. He was armed with what police describe as a sharp instrument that also had been used to gain entry through the front door.

As police in St. James, Ascension and Lafourche frantically searched for the car Rodrigue was driving, they quizzed relatives and friends about his potential whereabouts. Officers and university officials held their breath, hoping against a more tragic end to the story.

Rodrigue remains in the Lafourche Parish jail, charged with violating a protective order and aggravated kidnapping.

Anysia Preyan said that even though she found it necessary to obtain a protective court order against Rodrigue, she never dreamed her decision to end the relationship would have taken such a violent turn.

A phone call to university police from a friend who witnessed the alleged abduction, Wayne Meads, is credited by both Anysia Preyan and university officials with setting a chain of events in motion that eventually led to her safe return.

The couple dated for three years, during a period in which Rodrigue never worked, Anysia Preyan said. She said he treated her well, and that despite bumps in the relationship, she wanted to see it work.

But in January problems escalated at Anysia Preyan’s Mason Du Bayou apartment, where Rodrigue had allegedly been staying without authorization. The complex is open only to Nicholls students with some rare exceptions, and university officials banned Rodrigue.

On March 30, police were dispatched to the apartment after receiving a domestic-disturbance report. Campus police records say Rodrigue blamed Anysia Preyan for his eviction, and he was angry because she did not return his phone calls.

"He had loved her so much," said Kathleen Rodrigue, Tremayne M. Rodrigue’s mother. "They were always together."

She expressed surprise that her son now stands charged with a crime of violence.

"He never was a violent person," she said. "He is a momma’s boy. He is a pussycat and we all love him, and he would do anything to help anybody."

No physical fight was reported or suspected by police during the March 30 incident. But a routine records check revealed Rodrigue was wanted on unrelated charges. He was taken into custody and later released.

Harassment against Anysia Preyan, police said, escalated after that and a protective order barring Rodrigue from contacting her was issued. On Wednesday, District Judge John LeBlanc extended the order.

The next day -- Thursday -- Meads, who was staying at the apartment, was awakened by the sound of someone trying to force the door open. It was Rodrigue who broke in, forced Anysia Preyan out of the building and into a car, Meads told police in a telephone call made that night.

Under normal circumstances, university police might have had a skeleton crew in place Thursday due to spring break. But all officers were at the school and on duty for a seminar on domestic violence when the call for help came in.

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