Abduction Attempted 10 Days Ago

In a parallel investigation to missing 7-year-old Orange Park girl Somer Thompson, the Clay County Sheriff's Office said detectives were looking into an incident 10 days ago when three people in a blue Nissan Sentra allegedly tried to lure a girl into their car.

The Orange Park Police Department report said a 5-year-old girl on a bicycle was riding about one block from where Somer was last seen when she was approached by a vehicle driven by a Hispanic woman with two Hispanic men as passengers.

According to the report, the three approached the 5-year-old in the 1200 block of Ambor Circle Drive and told her to get into the vehicle. When she screamed and rode her bike in the opposite direction, the car sped off in an unknown direction.

"We have no reason to believe that that incident is connected to the disappearance of Somer, but we cannot assume that it is not connected either, so we're working on any leads we can follow up," Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler said.

April Boothroyd, the mother of the 5-year-old, and Shannon Pollett, the woman who stopped her vehicle during the abduction attempt, appeared with Beseler at Tuesday morning's news conference regarding Somer's search.

"My daughter was where she was not supposed to be, walks away from the home, a car stopped her, lured her to the car, wanted her to get in the car," Boothroyd said. "My daughter said no and started crying and fell off her bike."

Pollett said the girl was "screaming, no, no, no, and she was visibly upset." The car sped off when Pollett stopped, and she followed the girl home to tell her parents what had happened.

"My first question to the little girl was, 'Do you know these people?'" Pollett said. "She said no. My second question was, 'What did they say to you?' And she said they said to get in the car. It was at that point I realized something wasn't right, and when I turned around to look for the car it was gone."

Boothroyd called 911 to report what happened.

"A blue or black Nissan Sentra with a couple almost was (inaudible) her in the direction telling her to get into the car," she told a 911 operator. "My daughter Caylee turns around and starts screaming and crying and trying to get home. ... My daughter says she has no idea who these people were. She does not know, she never seen them before."

There was no search and no arrest, and it didn't come up again until Somer went missing.

"It dawned on me that maybe I should ask them if they thought that it had anything to do, or if there was a report made from what happened last weekend," Boothroyd said.

Beseler said the Orange Park Police Department looked into the matter.

"Once this incident occurred, it was filtered to us, and we immediately began following up on it," Beseler said.

The police chief said they did disseminate the information but maybe should have put out a bulletin. He said he believes police followed procedures.