Stopping A Kidnapper

A boy’s bravery saves a little girl from the unimaginable.

- Alyssa Jung

IT WAS A SCENE Norman Rockwell might have painted: three kids laughing as they took turns riding a scooter on their quiet street. Last December, on a crisp Saturday afternoon in Wichita Falls, Texas, 11-year old TJ Smith had just jumped off the scooter as his neighbor Kim,* age 7, claimed her turn and her sister Julie,* 9, looked on. Kim straddled the scooter and paused to catch her breath. That was when the bearded man with a head of messy curls appeared. The kids didn’t see where he came from, but they know exactly what happened next: Without uttering a word, he picked Kim up off the scooter and calmly strode away.

“He cradled her like a baby and just walked down the street,” says TJ. In fact, the composed way the man held Kim led TJ to believe he must have been a relative. But something wasn’t right. “I could see her face,” TJ said. “She was scared.”