BEDFORD COUNTY, Va. – A neighbor helped rescue a teenage girl Tuesday after she was confronted by a man who exposed himself to her. The girl told 911 the man also tried to lure her into his car.
Bedford County sheriff's deputies are still looking for the suspect. Margaret Barkheimer says her children saw the teenage girl running away from the suspect Tuesday on Butterfly Lane in Stewartsville and she immediately helped.
"I'm very proud of my kids. First thing they did was come in and grab me and I come straight down here," Barkheimer said.
"I couldn't imagine that. I would be terrified. I mean, at first I couldn't comprehend that that had really just happened. Someone had tried to get out of their vehicle nude and take a 16-year-old girl," Barkheimer said.
Barkheimer said she called 911 and let the officers get any description the girl could offer. She says that since the incident happened near a bus stop in her neighborhood, she's telling her children to be careful.
"I tell mine, they need to all stay together as a group, because I feel like something would be less likely to happen in a group and they would be more able to get help if they needed to. Definitely not walking by themselves, because this was a 16 year old girl and she's, that's an older girl, very more so capable of defending herself, and he did not care at all apparently," Barkheimer said.
Barkheimer says she hopes deputies can track down the man responsible, but with only the knowledge that it may be a white man in a tan Toyota pickup, she says everyone needs to stay vigilant.
"Be on the lookout, because we don't want it to happen to any children. I mean, it's sad our children can't even get off the school bus without something like this happening," Barkheimer said.