Police investigate after children say man in van attempted to kidnap them in North Myrtle Beach
NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – North Myrtle Beach police are investigating after two children said someone in a van tried to kidnap them over the weekend.
According to an incident report from the North Myrtle Beach Department of Public Safety, police were called to a Comfort Inn on U.S. 17 South on Saturday in reference to a possible missing child.
The officer got to the inn and saw both children were accounted for and “visibly shaken” over the incident, the report stated.
One of the children, an 11-year-old girl from Germany, said a man grabbed her by her arm and tried to pull her into the van. She was able to break free and run to the hotel, according to police.
The other child, a 12-year-old boy from North Carolina, said he and the girl were walking from their vacation home on Poinsett Street to the Turtle Mart to get some breakfast. They noticed a black van with a chrome front end and dark windows approach them and slow down, the report stated.
Both children got a “strange feeling about it” and ran and hid behind a house for five minutes. They went back to the street and continued their walk when the van reapproached again, causing both to “split in panic,” according to the incident report.