Police Say Tips Helping Investigation Into Attempted Abductions
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PRINCETON (CBS 11 NEWS) - Police say they have been overwhelmed by the amount of help to find a possible child predator, and they're urging the public to keep the tips coming.
All the coverage about the recent series of child abduction cases is what led a woman in one Princeton neighborhood to call police when she noticed a strange man standing in the middle of her street staring at her family.
She says he matched the suspect description, and now detectives are looking closely at her encounter.
After talking to officers, Ana Martinez stopped by the Princeton Police Department to drop off a copy of her surveillance video they asked to see.
Detectives want to know if a scary experience right outside her home could be related to the series of attempted abductions reported across the county.
"I got scared. I don't let my daughter go outside no more. I talk to my sister. Whenever they come over to my house, I don't let my nieces and nephew go out no more. It's scary. I mean I never thought this would happen here in Princeton," Martinez said.
Martinez had just seen reports of the Princeton mom who confronted a suspect trying to lure her child into his truck, so when she saw a similar truck park outside her home and a man matching the suspect description, Martinez and her sister were worried.
"My sister walked outside, and her little boy ran behind the truck, her truck, so she was going to go get him, and then that guy was standing in the road just staring at them," Martinez said.
The man left as soon as they shined a flashlight.
"He looked bald with a beard, a long beard like the... He looked kind of old," Martinez said.
While Martinez can't be sure this was the same man as the suspect in the attempted kidnappings, this is exactly the kind of suspicious activity investigators want the public to report.
Princeton Police Chief James Waters says tips from the public have already helped detectives.
"We are following up on any and every single lead, and this is where the two people of interest have actually come into play," Waters said.
Detectives are working to establish where those persons of interest were during the attempted abduction cases and what they were driving.
"I hope they get him or whoever he is," Martinez said.
With kids coming back next week from Spring Break, police tell us they plan to increase patrols around bus stops and make more visits to schools to teach kids about safety around strangers.
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