A 10-year old boy from Gosnell, Arkansas, had to physically defend himself against a would-be kidnapper who tried to coax him into her car while he was outside playing with some of the other local neighborhood children.
The driver, a woman, accompanied by a man, started by trying to simply convince Cloud to get into the car. But when that didn’t work, she proceeded to use physical force.
“She didn’t really say anything but, ‘Get in the trunk. We’re gonna go for a ride,’” explained Cloud, before continuing on to reveal that the woman then tried to get him into the car unwillingly.
“She grabbed my wrist, and then I kicked her in the knee, and she stepped on my foot,” he said.
Luckily, one of the neighboring parents saw what was happening when she stepped outside and was able to intervene as well. Jamie Herron, whose 3-year-old daughter had been playing outside as well, was able to snatch her child back from the would-be kidnapper.
“I asked them what the hell they was doing,” Herron said. She told the news that she pushed, pulled and did whatever she could think of to get the woman away from her child.
Luckily, the woman was unable to get any of the five children who had been playing outside into her car, and she sped away after her unsuccessful kidnapping attempt. Law enforcement was then able to catch up with her at a later time, and she has been arrested for kidnapping, driving while intoxicated, and “a number of other things.”
“I really don’t know where she would have took them or what she would have done to them after she sobered up. I really don’t,” Herron mused.
She is currently out of jail on a $3,900 bond while she awaits her trial. Meanwhile, the parents of the children who underwent the scary ordeal are now grappling with a lost sense of security for their young ones while playing out on a neighborhood street. The good news is that no one was abducted.
Cloud’s mother is one of those who has been struggling with the scare.
“Since then, I haven’t wanted him out of my sight,” Amber Pannell, Cloud’s mother, said.
It may take some time to gain back the sense of security lost, but at the very least, all of the children—Cloud included—are still safe at home with their parents.
