Police investigate after children say man in van attempted to ki - WMBFNews.com, Myrtle Beach/Florence SC, Weather

NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WMBF) – North Myrtle Beach police are investigating after two children said someone in a van tried to kidnap them over the weekend.

According to an incident report from the North Myrtle Beach Department of Public Safety, police were called to a Comfort Inn on U.S. 17 South on Saturday in reference to a possible missing child.

The officer got to the inn and saw both children were accounted for and “visibly shaken” over the incident, the report stated.

One of the children, an 11-year-old girl from Germany, said a man grabbed her by her arm and tried to pull her into the van. She was able to break free and run to the hotel, according to police.

The other child, a 12-year-old boy from North Carolina, said he and the girl were walking from their vacation home on Poinsett Street to the Turtle Mart to get some breakfast. They noticed a black van with a chrome front end and dark windows approach them and slow down, the report stated.

Both children got a “strange feeling about it” and ran and hid behind a house for five minutes. They went back to the street and continued their walk when the van reapproached again, causing both to “split in panic,” according to the incident report.

The two became separated, with the girl running to the hotel. That’s when she said the van pulled alongside of her and the man tried to pull her inside.

According to the boy, he assumed the girl had ran to the Turtle Mart and that’s where he ran to, according to the report. When he saw she wasn’t there, he started calling her name and walking toward the hotel. A woman told him the girl was there and he arrived just prior to police.

Police reviewed hotel surveillance footage of the parking lot and the street. Just prior to one of the children arriving at the Comfort Inn, a black van can be seen on the video driving on Poinsett Street and a child can be seen running in the background, the report stated.

The van was described as Nissan model with a large chrome grill and black tinted windows. The boy said he thought the tag was a North Carolina license plate but he couldn’t be sure, according to the report.

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