WINONA, Minn. – A Winona woman had a horrific tale about her boyfriend pulling a gun on her at a bus pick-up point in Rochester and threatening her all the way to their destination in Winona until she could get away and call 911. None of it was true, police said. They said that Kayla Marrie Tolbert, 27, made it all up. She was jailed for filing a false report. Also, as police soon learned, she was a fugitive from justice in Missouri. Her tale at first was compelling, police said. She told them that her boyfriend pulled a loaded handgun on her at the Rochester bus stop and said he would kill her. The threats, she said, continued aboard the bus, which dropped then off on Huff Street near Winona State University. As they walked toward Center Street and their apartment, she said, she purposely fell back about a block so he wouldn’t see her call 911. This was about 2:20 p.m. The boyfriend denied the story to police. Yes, he admitted, he always carried a fake handgun – a plastic replica, no more than a BB air gun actually– and that Tolbert knew about it and knew that it was a fake and that he never came anywhere near to pointing it at her. So who was telling the truth? Police examined the gun. It indeed was a fake – and legal. They called Rochester police to look for surveillance video of the bus stop where the episode supposedly began The tape showed nothing unusual about the couple waiting for the Jefferson Lines bus to arrive and pick them up.
Tolbert. Police dumbfounded about why she concocted her story. Bouyfriend says he also dumbfounded.