HENRY COUNTY, Va. – "He was parked right there," 12-year-old Zaver Daye said, recalling where a suspicious man in a van stopped outside his house Sunday afternoon.
Daye was outside his house on Greyson Street in Henry County with his brother and cousin around 5 p.m. Sunday when what he describes as a red minivan driven by a bald, white man with a white t-shirt and baggy jeans pulled up and offered candy.
"I yelled, 'I don't talk to strangers,' and I ran in the house and I locked the door after pushing all my little cousins and my brother in," Daye said.
He said the man came up the road from the west in his red van, stopped in the middle of the road in front of the house and then got out of the van with candy in hand.
"He had a bag of candy, but he just pulled out three candy bars because he saw me, my brother, and my cousin," Daye recalled. "I was scared and I was also nervous because I didn't know what to do. But then I just thought, 'This man could take us, so we need to get everybody in the house.'"
Daye's mother, Tribly Dixon, said this is very concerning because kids on the street often play outside.
"Just be careful, just watch your kids. Even though they're just outside in your front yard, watch your kids regardless. Open a window, open a door or sit outside with them," Dixon emphasized.
Henry County Sheriff Lane Perry said calls like this are not common.
He can only recall receiving two other similar calls in his 25 years in law enforcement.
He doesn't want parents to panic over this incident, especially with Halloween on Wednesday when kids will be out looking for candy, but he reminds parents to teach their kids how to react if they're approached by someone they don't know.
"If you need to, you need to start yelling. But you definitely need to go immediately to an adult, go get inside," Perry said.
The sheriff's office is investigating.
Anyone with information about Sunday's incident is asked to call the sheriff's office.