Sweetwater County deputies are investigating a report of what may have been an attempted child abduction on Wednesday but another reported abduction attempt also called in on the same day turned out to be unfounded.
Detective Dick Blust of the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office said one report came in from the Mobile Corrals trailer park just west of Rock Springs around mid-day. Several children there said a man in a white van motioned to them as if encouraging them to get into his vehicle. One of the children reported the van to his father, who searched the area but was unable to locate the vehicle. Efforts by deputies in the same and adjacent areas also produced negative results.
Later in the day, it was reported that a suspicious man in a white van spoke to a woman and her child in the neighborhood north of the Smith’s store on Foothill Drive. The man, it was reported, said he needed help looking for his dog.
Blust said investigating officers followed up with interviews and discovered that the report was baseless; in fact, no such contact had occurred.
The investigation into the incident at the Mobile Corrals is continuing. Blust commended the children there for the action they took:
“They did exactly the right thing,” he said. “They stayed away from the man and the vehicle and reported the situation to a parent or other adult immediately.”