I bought iphone 5c off craiglist?

I recently bought iphone 5c it has icloud account that won't let me reset the phone. The owner said he bought that way, and he doesn't have the password, and he won't refund. I have all the text messages, and we were in gas station where there was a camera too. What to do? Should I call police? Please advise

Find the IMEI number and see if it is blacklisted at this site
http://swappa.com/esn
It doesn't make sense to me that you can't reset the phone because of an icloud account

Unfortunately, neither Apple or a carrier will get involved with third party transactions. Calling the police won't help much since you really didn't have anything stolen, just didn't get what you thought you were paying for.
iCloud lock is a known issue when purchasing from Craigslist and a deal of a price. Honestly it likely means the phone was cut off or stolen or both. Hate that you have to do this but it will take some time and a few more bucks to maybe (and that's a big maybe) to get iCloud removed so you can activate. Try these samples and look for similar. Best luck.

You got taken. You saw a price that was too good to be true. The reason the price was so good is that it was stolen. You certainly made it easy for the thief.

If you call the police you risk it be stolen and having to return to police and be out of your money as they won't go after the guy have you tried hard resting phone by hooking to computer and force resetting through the computer. I forget exactly what I done before when I found a old phone of mine and couldn't remember password but you'd need the apple app download to computer try you tubing it sorry can't help any more

Why didn't you check this before buying? Had you asked you would have gotten many replies here telling you to do so. Its probably stolen. If you have his name you can probably file against him for small claims court to get your money back, which they probably wouldn't even show up, which means automatic loss for them, however you have to know who they are.