Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt (LVMPD)

A 28-year-old man in Nevada has been arrested after he allegedly kidnapped his girlfriend and threatened to kill the woman, rescued when she mouthed the words “help me” when driving by police conducting a traffic stop.

Nathaniel Foutch-Pratt was taken into custody last week and charged with one count each of first-degree kidnapping, attempted murder, and domestic battery by strangulation, court records show.

Foutch-Pratt and his girlfriend — whose name has not been released by authorities — were on a road trip traveling from Illinois to California earlier this month when things took a turn for the worse, according to a probable cause affidavit obtained by Las Vegas NBC affiliate KSNV.

The affidavit reportedly states two officers with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department first encountered Foutch-Pratt and the victim at about 9:10 p.m. on the night of Feb. 20 during an unrelated traffic stop on a vehicle near the corner of Pecos Road and Washington Avenue. During the stop, one of the officers allegedly saw Foutch-Pratt driving past them at a high speed in an SUV. The officer also noticed a woman in the passenger doing something alarming.

“I observed a white female adult in the passenger seat stick her head out the window,” one of the officers reportedly wrote in the document. “She mouthed the words ‘HELP ME’ as the vehicle was driving away from Officers.”

The driver had clearly been tipped off to what happened because police said he entered the southbound side of U.S. 95 traveling north — against traffic — and the officers gave chase. The SUV crashed a short while later and the officers approached the vehicle.