Deputies investigate attempted kidnapping in Spanaway

SPANAWAY, Wash. — A man is behind bars and faces three counts of kidnapping after Pierce County deputies said he tried to abduct three teenage girls.

The incident happened Sunday near the intersection of Mountain Highway and Field Road in Spanaway.

Kiayra Vanscoyoc said she and her fiancé, Keano, Riggs were headed to dinner when they saw the man chasing after the three girls.

“I said, ‘Are you OK?’, and she looked at me and was like, ‘No, he’s chasing me!’” Vanscoyoc said.

“Yeah, she looked scared, and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’” Riggs said.

Vanscoyoc said she works for the Department of Social and Health Services and could immediately tell something was wrong. So, she pulled their car over, swung the door open, and let the kids jump in.

“As we were getting the girls in the car, the guy kept running toward us trying to get to the car,” Vanscoyoc said.

The suspect was able to make it to their vehicle, which was blocked by traffic. That was when Riggs said he jumped out of the car and physically moved the man out of the way.

Riggs said the man told him, “Please, let me just have one of them.”

”I have daughters as well, and if anyone was to approach them in the afternoon like that, that would be really scary,” Sgt. Darren Moss with the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department said.

Moss said the girls were so scared that they even threw their shoes at oncoming traffic to get someone’s attention.

“That’s smart. People are going to slow down and see what’s going on. She got somebody’s attention,” Moss said.

It was the attention of a couple who knew what to do to get those teenagers out of harm’s way.

“I believe that we were put there first for a reason,” Vanscoyoc said. “Me, of all people, dealing with sexually violent predators. I was like, ‘Me, of all people, why me.’”

©2021 Cox Media Group