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MURRAY — A neighborhood near 6500 South Lombardy Drive is on alert this evening after a mother says she saved her 2-year-old daughter from being kidnapped.
"It's a safe neighborhood," Sacia Ames said. "We all know each other."
On Sunday at around 3 p.m., Sacia Ames said she was playing with her 2-year-old in a fenced front yard when her younger daughter needed attention on the patio.
"I heard her drop her sippy cup, so I went to go pick it up,” Sacia Ames said. “As I'm over there I hear, 'Do you want some candy?'"
She turned to see a man reaching over, grabbing her older daughter's wrist.
"(It was) as if he's getting ready to pull her up over the gate,” Sacia Ames said. “I freaked out and started running down the driveway telling him to let go of my child. He looked like a deer caught in the headlights."
Sacia Ames said she grabbed her daughter, and the man sped off in a late-model silver Hyundai Elantra. The man is described in his 40s with a scruffy appearance; Sacia Ames said he was wearing a tan hat and blue jeans.
"I held her for dear life,” Sacia Ames said. “A moment like that is every parent's worst nightmare. I thought I was going lose my daughter."
Sacia Ames's father, Dave Ames, raised her in the home and was stunned by the man's boldness.
"That stuff just doesn't happen around here," Dave Ames said. "Everybody in this neighborhood would stand up to help any one of the neighbors."
"We are looking into it, trying to identify the individual and trying to get all of the details regarding it,” Murray police detective Ken Bass said Monday.
Sacia Ames plans to be extra cautious in the future. "The gate was shut. You don't think too much of it, but I think from now on will be in the backyard," she said.
Anyone with information that might be helpful to police is asked to contact the Murray Police Department at 801-840-4000.
Contributing: Xoel Cardenas
