MOBILE, Ala. — Two people face charges after two 12-year-old boys reported that strangers tried to coax them out of a convenience store and into a vehicle on Three Notch-Kroner Road.
The encounter happened Thursday afternoon at the Chevron station in the 7000 block of the road. Late that night, Mobile police arrested Tosha Slack, 41, and Douglas Jones, 56, each on two counts of enticing a child to enter. Slack also faces two counts of first-degree sexual abuse.
A Mother’s Account
April Teal, the mother of one of the boys, said her son and his friend had slipped away from a nearby house and walked to the store when a woman approached them at the checkout counter.
“She literally took her fingers and was running her fingers through my son’s hair, and was trying to convince him to get into her vehicle, was offering him ice cream and candy,” Teal said. She said the woman also touched her son’s leg.
Security footage from the store shows a woman walking up to the two children at the counter and speaking with them.
Teal said her son hesitated before pulling away. “I watched my son pause,” she said. “He’s a kid. What kid doesn’t want candy or ice cream?”
Boys Recorded A License Plate
According to Teal, the boys left the store and wrote down the license plate number of the vehicle. She said they stopped at several houses along the way to tell adults what had happened while the occupants of the vehicle followed and called out to them.
Teal said she believes the two people arrested are the same people who approached her son. Mobile police have not confirmed that connection, and a department spokesman said the investigation is ongoing.
Both defendants are presumed innocent unless convicted in court.
“It makes you sick to your stomach,” Teal said, adding that she is keeping a closer watch on her son.