MARION COUNTY, Fla. — Detectives are searching for a man who tried to kidnap a teenage girl near her Marion County bus stop. The 15-year-old was walking near Northeast 10th Avenue (see map) on Tuesday afternoon after getting off the bus when she was grabbed.
Northeast 10th Avenue in North Marion County is a narrow strip of asphalt lined by a handful of homes. John and JoAnn Lubinacci have lived there more than 30 years and can't believe what happened Tuesday afternoon.
"Oh, it's disturbing! Disturbing enough that we're gonna watch for the kids now," JoAnn said.
Sheriff's detectives said, around 4:00pm, a 15-year-old girl had to fight off a kidnapper as she walked down the street.
"She was walking home from the bus stop and the man pulled up next to her, got out of his car, and grabbed her arm, her left arm she says, and tried to pull her back into the vehicle through the driver's door," explained Jenifer Fisher, Marion County Sheriff's Office.
The victim is a 10th grader at North Marion High School. She and several classmates got off a school bus at the corner of Northeast 10th and Highway 318 and then went their separate ways.
"I don't think there were many kids right there with her walking. She was quite a ways on her route on the way home," Fisher said.
John Lubinacci didn't get a look at the attacker's face, but he did see the guy sitting in a parked car.
"See those red ribbons over there, across the street? He was right there," he said.
And, from now on, the neighbors of Northeast 10th will keep an eye on that bus stop.
"When they come out, we're gonna watch them go all the way down to the corner, stuff like that, while we're here," JoAnn said.
The suspect is described as a thin white man in his mid-20s, 5-foot-10, with light brown hair and sunken cheeks. He was wearing baggy blue jeans, a black t-shirt and white Nike sneakers. He was driving a gray late model sedan.
WFTV
