We ran outside to find one of our neighbor's relatives standing in the middle on the road. Her husband was still trying to run after the truck that was being stolen while they had been sleeping in the back of the truck camper.
Since the old house across the street only had one bedroom, the family was sound asleep when they realized that someone had broken into the truck and was starting it up.
The husband jumped out of the camper to try to stop them. The mother was trying to stay in the camper since their four year old daughter was sleeping in the back also.
However the husband wasn't able to stop the young thief and when the kid floored the gas pedal, the mother came tumbling out of the back of the camper, landing in the middle of the road, leaving the little girl in the stolen camper.
My parents ran to call the police. Crime was rare in the neighborhood back in the 70's. Nearly all of it was usually conducted by teenagers looking for a little thrill.
The mother was hysterical. She was trying to remember if the camper door swung shut behind her. It was a case of deciding which would be worse for her daughter. To fall out of the back, or be taken to God knows where.
It was an awful couple of hours, trying to soothe an hysterical mother and tend the the large swelling that was occurring where she had hit the pavement.
Around 4 in the morning, an older couple living in the valley heard knocking on the door. When they looked outside, they found a small girl in her pajamas at their door. She told them she thought her mommy and daddy had died when they fell out of the truck. They had no idea where she had come from.
They phoned the police and matched up the two stories.
The boy that had stolen the truck hadn't realized anyone was asleep in the truck and never knew that he had actually kidnapped a little girl in his haste to steal an easy mark.
He had ditched the truck in the back of a dying community center. The little girl had gotten out of the truck and walked through the weeds to the nearest house.
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2 comments:
Well??? Did they catch the little shit and did he go to prison for kidnapping?
Well I honestly don't remember. Pretty sure they caught him and it was considered a "juvenile offense". Which meant a slap on the wrist.
In today's world there would have been an Amber Alert. One of the best ideas for getting info out on kidnapped children ever invented.
Thankfully this story had a good ending. But I remember how bruised up that mother was and how horribly afraid they both were as they waited to find out what had happened to their little girl.
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