Mom, dad praise girl who fled abductor
3/23/2006The parents of a 14-year-old central Toledo girl said yesterday they are proud of their quick-thinking daughter, who told police she escaped a gun-wielding abductor by hitting him in the groin with a hammer.
"I'm glad we got that phone call versus the other phone call that she was in a ditch somewhere," the teen's mother said.
The call came Tuesday morning from the victim's grandmother, where the teen ran to seek help after striking her kidnapper and fleeing his parked car.
The victim's mother told The Blade her daughter is still shaken and didn't go to school yesterday. The teen is seeking counseling and has the support of family and friends, her mother said.
Meanwhile, Toledo police are following up on about a dozen tips they received after releasing a sketch of the suspect.
The junior high student told police she was abducted by a man with a handgun in the 300 block of Moorish Avenue as she was walking to catch a bus for school. He drove her to the 1400 block of Lincoln Avenue, where he parked, pulled his pants down, and told her, "You know what I want," she told police.
The girl told her abductor she had dropped her ring in the car and was searching for it when she was really looking for a weapon of some kind. She felt the hammer under the front passenger seat, then put her ring back on. A short time later she grabbed the hammer, hit the man in the groin, and fled to her grandmother's nearby home on Foster Avenue, she told police.
The victim's father called his oldest child "a smart kid."
"A lot of people would not think to do those things. She had enough sense to use her head and not panic," he said.
Her father said he hopes the suspect is caught soon. "He needs to be put away forever. Anyone who preys on a child - that's what they should get."