Thursday, March 6, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.
When a stranger in a car opened the passenger door and invited an 8-year-old Boulder City boy to get in, the boy did the right thing, police said.
He ran for his life.
That was Feb. 25, the first of what police believe are a string of kidnap attempts, Boulder City Police Detective Kristine Stephens said.
Police have received reports from parents whose school-age children told them they were approached by an older man in a pickup who opened the passenger door and patted the seat, inviting them in. In each case, the children ran away, Stephens said.
So far, police say the man has made at least four attempts in Boulder City to get children into his pickup.
The most recent attempt was Saturday evening when two girls, 8 and 9, were walking home from a public swimming pool off Adams Boulevard. A man drove up to them, slowed down and tried to coax them into his truck, Stephens said.
After the 8-year-old boy complained about the Feb. 25 attempt, a 9-year-old girl's mother came forward and said her daughter was approached by a man Feb. 11.
Jim LaBuda, principal of King Elementary School, where the boy is a third-grader, praised the boy "for doing the right thing" by first running away and then reporting it to his mother.
The biggest fear, police said, is that the man will be successful.
"I'm pretty confident he hasn't been successful in Boulder City," Stephens said, noting that no children are missing, besides a couple of runaway teenagers. "That's what scares us and why we're working hard on this. We've had undercover people out there. We're doing a saturation patrol."
A woman later corroborated the children's accounts of the attempted kidnaps. A small woman the size of a 10-year-old wearing a ponytail was approached Feb. 23 by a man in a car. He called out, "Where are you going, little girl?" Stephens said. When the woman turned around, realizing she was not a child, he took off before she could get his license plate number.
"The first parent reported it because her boy was the subject of it," Stephens said. "'Come here, little boy,' he says as he pats the seat. He has the passenger door open. He never gets out of the car."
While police say the man has not committed a crime, they are looking for him for questioning.
"He could say he was looking for his dog," Stephens said. "But we're pretty sure we know what he is doing."
About 65 concerned parents showed up this week at Mitchell Elementary School for a meeting with police and school administrators to discuss the attempted abductions.
Some parents initially reacted with hysteria because they felt the police should have notified them of the attempts, Stephens said. But police handed out fliers, which they also took to the schools, asking administrators to notify parents.
Jane Stolverg, a secretary at Mitchell Elementary School, said after a parent called the school to complain about not being notified, the school, along with police, called the meeting.
Parents have since come forward, volunteering to revive a child-check program in Boulder City, which means parents will follow up each day to make sure all students arrive at school safely, Stolverg said.
"It worked well before, and we're implementing it again," she said.
Police have gotten leads that the man may live in the Las Vegas Valley. But they've also gotten reports that the pickup he drives has California plates.
Stephens said the man "doesn't have a set MO yet. It happens at all different times."
While parents have the right to be worried, "they should always worry," Stephens said, adding that one parent had allowed her 5-year-old to walk to and from school alone.
"We have 10,000 cars that go through here daily," she said. "You know there are major drug runners and child molesters -- probably everything goes through here."
Because Boulder City (population 14,500) is small compared with Las Vegas, violent crime is low, Stephens said. "But we do have the sex crimes here," she said.
"We're only 30 miles from Vegas. Some people think we live in a sheltered community, but that's not true. It's the day and age we live in. You can't escape crime anywhere."
The suspect is described as a white man in his 60s with a thin build, wrinkled face with a mustache, short gray hair with sideburns cut above the ears and wearing wire-frame bifocals. Police believe he may have shaved his mustache to change his identity. He drives a small, late-model white pickup with a camper shell, tinted windows and black interior.
Boulder City Police have alerted Metro, Henderson and North Las Vegas, as well as Los Angeles police, to be on the lookout for a man fitting that description who approaches children.
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