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Shipman drove away and summoned police, who found Nowak throwing her wig and BB gun into a garbage can. More incriminating supplies were inside a black duffel bag she was carrying: the brand new steel mallet; several feet of rubber tubing; six latex gloves; large plastic trash bags and $600 in cash. Nowak insisted to police that she merely wanted to speak to Shipman and to scare her away from Oefelein. But prosecutor Amanda Cowan called Nowak's scheme "a very well-thought-out plan to kidnap and perhaps injure the victim."
At the police station Nowak "kept saying, 'I can't believe this is happening to me,' " says one of the Orlando police officers who booked her. "A few times, she told us, 'I've never done anything like this before. I'm really sorry.' You could tell that she knew she had blown it, and she wanted us to know that this wasn't the type of person she normally was."
Nowak's arrest is all the more stunning because of her remarkable career. Raised in an upscale section of Rockville, Md., by Alfredo Caputo, a computer consultant, and his wife, Jane, a retired microbiologist, she fell in love with space travel when she was 5. "I remember the moon landing and watching those astronauts, and I thought that was very exciting" she said in a 2005 NASA interview. Early on, classmates could tell Nowak "was naturally gifted," says Mike Haggerty, who lived near her and graduated with her from C.W. Woodward High. "Her dream was always to be an astronaut. She wanted to walk on the moon."
