13-year-old boy stops kidnapper with a $3 toy his mom bought for him
Grimshaw recounted the encounter saying the kidnapper, “came from behind her, grabbed her like you see in the movies — hand over the mouth, arm around the waist — and was attempting to pull her into the woods.”

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That is when Owen reached for his slingshot and fired at him. When his sister freed himself from the kidnapper’s grasp, she ran inside the home crying telling her brother she was almost killed. An enraged Owen ran outside cursing at the kidnapper. He hurled a baseball at him which missed. He then attempted to hit him with his slingshot again but the rubber broke and made his third attempt futile.
The siblings then called their mother who had stopped at a relative’s place to help out while she had been on her way home from work. When she heard her incoherent and upset children on the phone, she made out the word ‘kidnapper’ and rushed home to call the police.
“I was in shock for a few days,” Maggie said.
The 17-year-old kidnapper was found hiding at a nearby gas station. He was then charged with attempted kidnapping, attempted felony assault, and misdemeanor assault and battery in Alpena County District Court.

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“He had obvious signs of an injury consistent with those that would have been sustained from the slingshot strikes to his head and chest,” police said in a press release.
Maggie said she was dubious of his son’s story about hitting the kidnapper from 200 feet away perfectly on his forehead and chest. But the police confirmed the story saying when they were interviewing the suspect, the marble-induced goose egg on his forehead kept growing.
“You said I always lie!” Owen said to his mother.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” she replied. “It just didn’t sound real, until there was proof. It sounds like something you would see in the movies.”
“Mom,” the teenager said, “stuff in the movies can and do happen in real life.” Clearly this young man is a hero!