Article published March 22, 2006
'GOOD THINKING'
Girl, 14, hammers abductor and flees; victim accosted in central Toledo
By CHRISTINA HALL
BLADE STAFF WRITER
A 14-year-old central Toledo girl told police she was abducted at gunpoint yesterday by a man seeking sex, but escaped after she hit him in the groin area with a hammer she found under his car seat.
The junior high student later told police she had previously learned in school that, if something like this were to happen, to search for a weapon. So the teen told the abductor she had dropped her ring in the suspect’s car and was searching for it. She felt the hammer under the front passenger seat, then put her ring back on, she told police.
A short time later, she grabbed the hammer and hit her abductor once in the groin area, Detective Harold Mosley said.
“That was good thinking on her part,” Sgt. Richard Murphy said of the victim.
Last night police were looking for the man, who abducted the girl just before 8 a.m. in the 300 block of Moorish Avenue. The victim had accompanied her cousin to a charter school and was walking back to her school bus stop when she was approached by the suspect in a car.
The man got out and pointed a black handgun at her. He put the gun to the scared girl’s right side, walked her back to his car, and opened the passenger door. The victim got into the car, police said.
The man drove to the 1400 block of Lincoln Avenue and parked. The victim told police he pulled down his pants and told her, “You know what I want.”
The teen grabbed the hammer, hit him, and ran to her grandmother’s home nearby on the 1300 block of Foster Avenue.
The victim was crying but not hurt when she arrived. The incident was reported to police about an hour after the abduction.
The victim could not be reached last night. Detective Mosley said the teen’s mother said the family would prefer not to speak with the media at this time.
“We want this guy in custody,” Sergeant Murphy said. “This scares us. We don’t want another child abducted in the city.”
Sergeant Murphy urged victims to do what they can not to get into a vehicle with a stranger and to yell or call attention to their situation.
“If you’re in the car, you’re at the suspect’s mercy,” he said.
The abductor is described as a white male in his 30s, about 6 feet, 4 inches tall, and about 285 pounds. He had black hair, a braided goatee, and yellowed teeth. He was wearing a red, long-sleeve shirt, dark blue jeans, and white K-Swiss tennis shoes.
He was driving a black, four-door car that may have been an older model Ford Taurus or similar looking vehicle. The car had a blue cloth interior and damage to a rear passenger-side window.
After the girl escaped, the suspect’s car fled west on Lincoln, police said.
Anyone with information about the crime is asked to call 419-936-3825.
Contact Christina Hall at chall@theblade.com or 419-724-6007.
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