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Deputies: Man offers children $20 to help him find hiding place in woods

PALM COAST, Fla. — A man approached an 11-year-old boy and his 9-year-old sister Monday evening in a Palm Coast subdivision and offered them $20 to help him find a good hiding place in the woods, the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office said.

The incident was reported shortly after 7 p.m. on Pepper Lane in the Belle Terre subdivision near Palm Coast Parkway Southeast and Interstate 95, deputies said.

The children’s father called 911 to report the incident after they ran home crying, a Sheriff’s Office report said.

“My kids were out playing in the front yard and on the street,” he told a dispatcher. “And a gentleman -- I won't even call him a gentleman -- a scumbag tried to lure my daughter into the woods.”

Neighbor Michelle Denson called the incident “scary” for the “normally quiet neighborhood.”

“Who knows what could have happened?” she said. “He may have never seen his child again.”

The children’s father told investigators that the unknown man didn’t touch them, the report said.

The man, who’s estimated to be 5 feet 5 inches tall and to weigh 145 pounds, was described as white with a black tattoo on the right side of his face.

He was wearing a long-sleeved, light-colored collared shirt with undone buttons and a white T-shirt underneath. He was also wearing long pants and was possibly carrying a black backpack.

The man was last seen walking into the wooded area, where he approached the children, deputies said.

No other details were given.