Dad believes man tried to abduct his daughter
‘She really is my hero, it could have been a very different Easter’
Scott MacDonald says he’s not going to be able to rest until police locate the man he believes tried to abduct his young daughter in Glace Bay.
“I go to bed and it’s on my mind, I wake up and it’s on my mind,” MacDonald said. “It’s scaring me and scaring everyone I mention it to. Until they find this guy it’s going to bug me.”
MacDonald, of Sydney Mines, said his children live in Glace Bay with their mother. He said on Thursday, March 24, at about 4 p.m., his nine-year old daughter was walking down West Avenue in Glace Bay, when a truck pulled up and started driving slowly beside her.
“I go to bed and it’s on my mind, I wake up and it’s on my mind.”
Scott MacDonald
“He whistled at her to get her attention. I always taught my kids you don’t pay any attention to anything like that.”
He said his daughter ignored the man and then the man started screaming: ‘ Why aren’t you talking to me?’ She got a little spooked and started walking faster. He kept going right beside her, hollering.”
MacDonald said the truck followed his daughter for several blocks but as soon as she was close enough to home and could see her older sister outside, she began screaming and ran.
He said his daughters called the Cape Breton Regional Police Service immediately.
MacDonald said the vehicle is a two-tone blue — light blue and dark blue — camouflaged truck with a 4 x 4 symbol on the back. The driver was described as having a big build, a brush cut, a goatee and wearing a black jacket.
“She said he had round, black glasses as Harry Potter wears.”
MacDonald said he has been around to the neighbours and has called people he knows across the Cape Breton Regional Municipality who service vehicles, work at gas stations and even bottle depots, passing on the description. He even called a delivery service with information to be dispatched to their drivers.
“I’m calling people I know who work on vehicles like that, who might know someone who drives a truck like this. “
MacDonald said he’s going to keep looking for this vehicle and will not give up. The day of the incident he had just arrived home from taking his mother to a chemotherapy treatment when he found out.
“I called my daughter — fighting back the tears — telling her she was my hero, did everything right,” he said. “She really is my hero; it could have been a very different Easter.”
He is urging anyone with information to come forward to not only protect his own children, but other children.
“My children are now locked in the house, have become prisoners over this. “
Staff Sgt. Reg Hutchings of the CBRPS, confirmed police responded to a call in Glace Bay Thursday where an older man in a blue truck had stopped and tried to speak to two youths in the area. He said apparently the kids wouldn’t speak to the man and the man left the area. Hutchings said police spoke to the kids and to their parents. He said officers also checked the area for a vehicle fitting that description but were unable to locate one at that time. He said the man is believed to possibly be in his 50s.
“A bulletin was sent out to our patrol officers in all divisions,” he said.
He said police are continuing the investigation and are interested in speaking to this individual who was in this area at that time.
“We have no other reports of similar incidents at this time.”
He said anyone with any information on this incident is asked to contact police at 902- 563- 5151 or Crime Stoppers at 902- 562- 8477.