Man Opens Door To Terrified Girl After Luring Incident
DENVER (CBS) - A man who lives in the Montbello neighborhood of Denver opened his door on Saturday to a teen girl who was terrified and said a stranger tried to get her into his car.
Police say while heading to a bus stop the girl was approached by a man in an SUV near East 51st Avenue and Uvalda Street. When she saw the SUV start to follow her, she dropped her backpack and ran down the street where she started banging on doors until finally someone opened up.
"She's just real scared right now," the girl's mother Piea Bennett said. "She said, 'Momma, I did everything you told me to do, scream, yell and beat on doors.' "
The only door that opened was the home of Joseph Douglas.
"She comes running back here saying, 'Call the police, call the police! ' " Douglas said.
Douglas said the girl was terrified and claimed someone was chasing her. That's when Douglas saw who she was running from.
"The red Navigator came around the corner and the little girl screamed behind me, 'That's him!' " Douglas said.
He tried chasing the SUV down, but the suspect fled. Douglas then called 911. He fears what might have happened had he not answered the door.
"I think he would have got her," he said.
"She's a very brave little girl," Bennett said.
In a strange turn of events, it turns out the girl is the daughter of Douglas' wife's best friend -- a girl he had yet to meet.
"She just so happened to look back and she saw my best friend's husband Joe open up the door," Bennett said.
Douglas says as a father himself, he just wants the man off the streets.
"(It) just melted my heart. I couldn't believe it, just to hear her so scared and afraid," he said.
The suspect is described as a Hispanic man with a black full beard and mustache. He was driving a Maroon Lincoln Navigator with large chrome wheels and tinted windows.
