A woman who was held hostage during an hours-long police standoff in Corcoran earlier this summer spoke out for the first time on Saturday, sharing the traumatic experience and the financial devastation left behind.

Police arrested Ryan Strandmark, 49, after he allegedly barricaded himself and a victim in a building on Cherry Lane on June 5. Authorities say Strandmark shot himself before surrendering early the next morning.

The woman held hostage that day is Janna Cummins. The suspect, Strandmark, is her ex-boyfriend.

Cummins said he had been staying in an outbuilding on her property, which doubles as her work-from-home office.

On the morning of June 5, before she left her house for the outbuilding to start work, she said an argument ensued over text and it escalated soon after.

“I had said some words to him after he had sent some words to me, and he came barreling up the steps to the porch with two guns,” Cummins said.

“And he pointed them at me and said, ‘It’s a good day to die today’…and that, ‘if we weren’t going to be together, then we shouldn’t live.'”

Cummins said she was first held hostage at gunpoint in the living room of her childhood home, where we sat for the interview.

“I said, ‘I don’t want to die because my dad just died,’ and I didn’t want my mom to bury me and my dad,” she shared.

Cummins said Strandmark took her phone, so she found an excuse to move to the outbuilding behind the house by telling him she had to get an email to her boss.

“I said, ‘because if I don’t, then they’ll be calling me because it’s required every single day,'” she explained.

“I emailed just super fast. I just, you know, added my stuff I was working on today, and I said in the in the subject, ‘call 911,’ and just hit send real quick.”

That was around 9:30 a.m., Cummins said, adding that she was still being held at gunpoint a couple of hours later when the sirens rolled in. That’s when Cummins says Strandmark fired what she described as a warning shot at the wall.

“So as soon as the cops were here, he shot off a gunshot into the wall, not towards anybody, but just as a warning to stay away.”

A police negotiator managed her release that evening after being held hostage for eight hours, Cummins said.

Police say Strandmark surrendered around 3:30 the next morning.

Cummins says she was uninjured and that Strandmark remains in the hospital from self-inflicted gunshot wounds as of this report.

He’s been charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping and threats of violence.

Cummins is thankful for her survival and that no one else was hurt, but now, she’s left to clean up the damage. The financial devastation stacked on top of the trauma she’s been reliving all summer.

“The most important thing is that we were okay, and he, you know, was transported immediately to the hospital and that no one else was hurt. But the aftermath of it is that all the windows were broken, but one, the door was completely destroyed, the doors on the inside are destroyed. There are rubber bullets, pepper spray all over inside, you know… All of the contents of the office building had to be gutted,” Cummins said.

The crime scene clean-up alone cost her more than $20,000, and insurance agreed to cover a fraction, she said. Her friends set up a GoFundMe account to help her rebuild. If you would like to help her cause, follow the link here.

Cummins emphasized that her story is just one illustration of how complex domestic violence is for survivors and she wants anyone out there feeling stuck and isolated, like she felt for years, to know that they’re not alone and that there is help for them too.

“It’s not that simple. If there’s feelings, there’s family, there’s, you know, a history, there’s manipulation, there’s, you know, emotional, physical abuse. It’s like you feel like you can’t leave. You feel stuck,” she shared.

To fellow survivors and others who may also be feeling “isolated” or “stuck,” she said, “Just know that you’re not alone. You’re never alone, completely alone.”

“You can leave, you can be okay, and there is support out there for people. So I would say that, no matter what, you’re stronger than you think. And, just have faith that you can make it through.”

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