MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A 16-year-old girl reported to police that a man tried to kidnap her Friday around 4 p.m. near the Memphis airport, and her friend said this is the second time the same man tried to kidnap her.
The girl said she got off the school bus around 3:45 p.m. near Ketchum Road and Pecan Circle and a white pickup truck pulled up beside her. The driver of the truck then got out and walked to the girl, eventually wrapping his arm around her and trying to pull her back to the truck, according to police.
Jasmine Riley, 14, said she was on the bus with the victim and that the attempted abduction happened just minutes after they had gone their separate ways.
“He pulled up on the side of her and said, ‘Do you remember me?’ Then he got out and said, and grabbed on her waist and said, ‘Come here,'” Riley said.
The victim was able to kick and scream, forcing the suspect to release her before running to a neighbor’s house for help.
Sally Robinson said the victim was in tears when she reached her house.
“‘Ms. Sally, Ms. Sally! This man, the same man that was after me. I fought him off of me,’ and she was just crying,” Robinson said.
Robinson said there was at least one other person who witnessed the attack but didn’t intervene.
“Some lady down there seen it in the apartments,” she said.
The suspect ran back to the truck and fled the scene on Ketchum Road toward Airways.
“If something like that was to happen to my daughter, God knows—only God knows—what I’m gonna do,” said neighbor Marlon Moore.
The victim described the suspect as a tall, muscular, bald black man wearing a neon green work vest, a white t-shirt and light-colored blue jeans. His truck was described as an extended body style with a camper on the back and writing on the side.
Riley told WREG this is the second time the same man tried to kidnap her friend. She said he tried another time in December on the victim’s birthday.
“I walk the same way she walk and I don’t know if he gonna pull up on me one day and say, ‘Come here, do this or do that,’ and I’m smaller than her so I might not be able to fight him as she did,” Riley said.
This investigation is ongoing, and WREG will provide updates as they are given to us.
