VERMILION — Vermilion police are investigating another report of attempted child abduction in which the alleged abductor or vehicle matches the description of two other incidents.
Police were sent to the Vermilion High School area Friday after a woman reported that her son and his friend were riding their bicycles home from Sailorway Middle School when a man in a white van approached them. The boys, ages 9 and 10, told police the man asked them to come to his vehicle and then followed them as they pedaled away.
Police searched for the driver, who was described as a 65-year-old white man with a gray mustache, wearing a white baseball hat with blue lettering, dark sunglasses and a white T-shirt. The vehicle was a white work-type van with no side windows, possibly scratched on the rear doors.
According to a police report, the boys were approached about 2:25 p.m. while they were heading east on Sailorway Drive. The man, who was sitting at the intersection of Sailorway Drive and Sanford Street, told the 10-year-old, “Come here, nice boy,” according to police.
The boy told police he rode back to meet up with his friend, who had fallen behind, and when he passed the van again, the man again tried to lure him inside. Both boys rode away but told police the man began to follow them at a high rate of speed southbound on Sanford Street but slowed down near Mapleview Drive.
The 10-year-old boy’s mother called police when the two told her what happened.
There were no suspects or evidence, according to the police report, but officers were reviewing surveillance video from the high school and middle school to see if an image of the van was captured.
An officer on the case wrote that two other incidents closely matched the description of the man or his van.
On May 17, a 10-year-old girl told police an older man in a gray minivan pulled into the driveway of her home and tried to wave her over to the vehicle. She said the man had gray hair and a Saint Bernard dog that looked like “Beethoven” from the movies.
When the girl walked into her home, the man drove away, she said.
Police showed the girl a photo lineup, but the girl said the man wasn’t in the photos.
On June 5, an older man with a mustache asked a 16-year-old girl walking home from school if she needed a ride home. The girl refused a ride and kept walking.
The girl told police she saw the man’s vehicle drive by her again as she was walking with a friend. She described the vehicle as a black two-door car with a chrome strip covering the trunk and tail lights.
A bus driver who witnessed the incident said the vehicle was a very shiny, luxury-type car, possibly a Cadillac, driven by a white male in his 50s, with brown and gray hair and facial hair.
The 16-year-old was shown a photo line-up, including a picture of a suspect who was arrested June 15 in Sherrod Park for child enticement, but the girl did not identify the man as the one who spoke to her.
Contact Chelsea Miller at 329-7123 or cmiller@chroniclet.com.
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