Kennesaw Police Search Scene of Attempted Abduction

The Kennesaw Police Department today will return to a wooded area where a man attempted to abduct a 10-year-old girl as she played Saturday night with a friend.

According to a police incident report, a man with a black hoodie, black pants, blue ski mask and yellow gloves grabbed the girl on her left ankle in a wooded area between Sumit Wood Drive and the tennis courts at the Westover subdivision. The girl screamed, broke free and ran toward her friends. But the 6-foot-tall man reappeared and and grabbed the girl's arm, an officer wrote in the report.

"Juvenile 1 stated it did not seem as if the subject was trying to pull her," the officer said. "He was only squeezing when he grabbed her and said nothing."

Ultimately, the man let the girl go. She ran to the tennis courts, where she hid with another friend before running home. Kennesaw Police were notified of the incident at about 7:22 p.m. Saturday.

Officers searched the wooded area, but there was no trace of the man, according to the report.

They returned Monday and found a collapsed tent in the woods, said Officer Scott Luther, the spokesman for the Kennesaw Police Department.

"It's been out there for awhile," he said. "It had debris such as leaves and sticks inside it. And the leaves around it were all fresh, meaning nobody had stepped on them and crushed them."

Other than the tent, "we haven't really found anything (else) in the woods," Luther said. "We searched today a pretty good bit."

He urged people to "be very familiar with (their) surroundings" if they plan to walk in heavily wooded areas or places where other people can hide.

WSB-TV on Monday identified the girl in the attempted abduction as 10-year-old Karalynn Davis.

“I'm happy,” she said, “that I got away.” 

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