I’m amazed at how quickly this happened. Girls mom was in another aisle shopping and totally unaware of what was happening.
A few seconds and your kid can be snatched and gone. Where? Was he going to attack her in the store? Or carry her out the front door?
The kid was smart to yell, kick, and squirm. She got away from this sick bastard.
The Walmart store video at the bottom of the article is amazing.
I think we need to be completely sure of all our facts, not jump to any conclusions, and remember that we can be wrong, people make mistakes (and can change), and keep in mind that we are a decent, civilized society who are called to act like adults, and not seek petty revenge.
Then slowly torture him to death over a period of weeks.
Regards,
Shodan
Your second paragraph is the big question. How successful was this abduction likely to be? He was going to haul a kicking screaming kid outside the front door of a Walmart? Its scary, and at the same time, its really stupid to grab a kid in a WalMart of all places.
The terror of every parent is to deal with their own screaming toddler who is screaming “I don’t like you, you aren’t my Mommy!” Because, from experience, you are lucky if you don’t get stoned before your own child recants.
He probably figured he could cover her mouth and act like she was just throwing a tantrum for “daddy.” People usually approve of tantruming kids being whisked out of somewhere.
In my experience, busybodies stop you and ask “what are you doing?” But its been five years since my daughter has been seven and eight years since I’ve hauled a screaming child out of Target.
(My daughter was a champion tantrumer. I did not get questioned hauling her out of restaurants after paying for her meal, but I did out of grocery stores and Target.)
The really scary thing is how easy it is to get some kids to just meekly follow you out of the store - -this girl was an exception.
Once I was in a Toys R Us looking for Wallace & Gromit videos for my son, and struck up a conversation with a woman who was nearby. During our conversation, she repeatedly told her little girl (I estimate maybe four years old), “Julie*? Julie, stay where I can see you.”
I wished the mom a good day and walked off, looking at something else. A few minutes later, I heard the mom calling out, “Julie? Where are you?” I saw the kid down my aisle, blissfully unaware that her mom was calling her. I walked over and said, “Julie, your mom wants you. Come with me and I’ll take you to her.” She just followed me like a baby duck.
I led her back to her mom, who was grateful. It suddenly occurred to me, holy crap, I could have led this little girl right out the door! All it took was for me to know her name, which anyone in the store could have overheard. I went all cold inside at the thought. I went down on one knee in front of little Julie and said, “Now, honey, the NEXT time a man you don’t know says to come with him, DON’T DO IT!”
*Needless to say, Julie wasn’t really her name – I don’t remember what it was.
Just to keep things in perspective: there are about 75 million school-age children in the USA, of which around 100 are abducted by strangers every year. They are hugely more at risk from family and friends, cars, or even baths. Don’t let yourself get panicked by the extremely unlikely.
Thank you for posting this. It’s easily the scariest thing any parent can imagine, but it really is rare.
I’m wondering how they knew who to chase down and arrest. The mother had to find the Walmart manager, then he had to call the cops & review the security tape. It seems like bad guy would have been long gone by then. Article says the police chased down the car he was seen leaving in.
Glad they caught him before he could try grabbing another child.
My friends wife manages a Wal-mart. Trust me when I say that they had clear security footage of this guy from every conceivable angle from the time he got out of his car to the moment he got back in it.
I saw a fascinating video on YouTube once about a social experiment some people did about child abduction. A man (actor) grabbed a little girl (actress - her mom was watching on CCTV) and tried to pull her down the street. She screamed and struggled “Let go of me! You’re not my daddy!” and damn near every passerby just looked at them and kept on walking. The only people that actually intervened were a couple of 20-something guys - they looked at the man and girl, then at each other, then took off after them and would have beat the guy’s ass if he didn’t suddenly drop the girl and go “TV! TV!! The police are right there!!”. Later on they showed that an older woman was calling 911 on her cel phone (not getting directly involved herself). It was really interesting to see how many people didn’t do a thing though.
One kid safety site had this tip, which seems to make sense: teach your child that if she gets lost, instead of looking for a police officer or someone who works there (because it’s hard for little kids to make good determinations of who those people are; their world focuses on stuff about three feet off the ground), they should look for a mommy with children and ask for help. Another mother will go above and beyond to help a lost kid, and it’s much easier for a kid to spot a mommy with her kiddos than it is for them to figure out what a store employee looks like.
Another tip: The Toronto Sun interviewed the P.O.S. that kidnapped and murdered Holly Jones. He said that if she had screamed and kicked and struggled he would have immediately let her go. But he said she froze in fear and went quietly, that’s how he was able to get her.
So teach your kids to freak the fuck out if they’re ever grabbed.
That sounds interesting, got a link or a title description?
Different school of thought here. Given the chances of my kids being abducted by a stranger is incredibly low, I don’t make a big deal of it.
Amen. I hate to see these stories. People just freak out and tell each other how dangerous the world is and how children should never be left alone and how all strangers are dangerous.
Stories like this and successful predators just give people more reasons to close up their children’s lives and create further social disconnection.
Something similar just happened here locally this morning. No video footage, though. It’s scary. I know this type of thing is rare, but still I think I’ll be having a discussion with my four year-old this afternoon when she gets home from school.
Thank you, Omega Glory, I’m at work and YouTube is blocked here. I appreciate you getting that.
Absolutely talk to your kids. Tell them to kick and scream and bite if the are grabbed by someone they don’t know, or someone they do know that isn’t on the short list of people it’s ok to have hold me. Tell them not to go help looking for lost puppies or take candy from strangers. Have a safe word that you’ll give mom and dads friends if you send someone she doesn’t know to pick her up. Ours was kangaroo and they shouldn’t get into a car with anyone that doesn’t know the word except mom, dad, and in our case grandma and the next door neighbor.
Eta: we had a suspected predititor trying to coax girls into his van at the middle school last year. The girls were walkers walking home from school. They went home and did what they were supposed to, called their parents or the police. The guy was not caught, police cars patrolling the neighborhood when school is out kept him away and none of the kids got a plate number. But, like brittney, the girls knew what to do.