A busy stretch of Route 29 near Yellow Branch Elementary School is the last place you might expect someone to be abducted, but it almost happened Tuesday morning at a home right next to the highway.
"The victim was in her front yard, when she was approached by a man dressed in dark clothing, wearing a mask," said Major L.T. Guthrie with the Campbell County Sheriff's Office.
The 16-year-old girl had just walked outside to start her car, when a man grabbed her and tried to drag her away.
"He assaulted her and attempted to gain control of the victim," Guthrie said.
The attacker might have been successful, if it hadn't been for the busy highway.
During the assault, the girl's parents say a tractor-trailer tried to make a u-turn in front of the house. That caused traffic to back up; and with people suddenly able to watch, the attacker ran away.
With a suspect still out there, people in this area say they're disturbed.
"It made me nervous and very upset," said Sandi Estes, who owns a business right across from where the attack happened.
"You don't think about anyone being out there in this neighborhood, but now that it's happened, that's all I think about because of my grandchildren and my kids," Estes said.
"We have never heard of anything of this nature happening in the neighborhood," said Loretta Knight, who's lived in a home across from the attack scene for 38 years.
Knight says news of the attack has everyone on the lookout.
"We all would like to be trusting, thinking that people will do the right thing, particularly when it comes to young people and not harming them," said Knight. "But it's not that way anymore, so we just have to be vigilant."
