MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A Marshall County woman and her son are safe after they say they were kidnapped shortly after leaving a Dollar General near Chulahoma.
The woman does not want to be identified, but she told WREG she and her son were abducted early Saturday evening after shopping at Dollar General on Highway 4 in Marshall County. She declined to give certain details but says she and her 21-year-old son were told to get in a vehicle and close their eyes.
“We were walking to the car when we were approached by this man,” she said. “I had never seen this man before. I have no idea who he was. I don’t know if I want to describe him.”
She said she and her son were in the car for a long time and did not realize they traveled into Lafayette County where she says the nightmare was just beginning.
“I was kept for quite a few hours and sexually assaulted, and then I was released sometimes later at night by the kidnapper,” she said.
She did not want to comment on if her son was injured.
The Dollar General manager declined to comment, but one man who was nearby Saturday said he saw several law enforcement vehicles in the parking lot.
The woman said she and her son were located thanks to her daughter’s determination who went looking for the pair and only found their abandoned car in the parking lot.
“My gut is telling me that something is wrong,” her daughter said.
The daughter told WREG that the pair was located because of the LIFE360 app installed on her brother’s phone.
“So, I called my dad and said, ‘I need you to open up that app and see where he is,'” the victim’s daughter said. “‘Because they went to this store and they are not here, but the car is here and I think something has happened.'”
Neither the Lafayette County Sheriff’s Department nor the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department would comment or confirm an investigation.
“You see this stuff on the news all the time and you think ‘that’s not going to happen to me, that it’s not going to happen to my loved ones,'” the victim said. “Then when it happens to you it’s completely unreal.”