Saturday, May. 30, 2009

JENNIFER LOMBARDI | WATERFORD PLANTATION

A couple of weeks ago I received a frantic phone call from a friend telling me that a mutual friend who lives in the Farm had a terrible scare. The Maggio family experienced an attempted child abduction, right here in Carolina Forest.

Word quickly spread with phone calls and e-mails to local moms to prepare our children and warn parents of these "bad guys" out there.

As the story has developed and changed, I thought it would be a good idea to ask Sue Maggio, the boys' mom, her family's side of the story. Here is what Sue told me:

"It was a typical Wednesday afternoon. My husband and I were outside talking, and two of our sons, Christian, 10 and Peter, 7, asked if they could ride their bikes to the cul-de-sac four houses down. We said yes, since we were both outside. Not two minutes later, Christian and Peter came back, very scared, and Christian said a blue van pulled up to him and Peter and asked if they wanted candy.

"Christian said 'no,' and they said, 'We have plenty in the back; I'll open the door.' Christian said louder, 'NO. Go away!' and they left. He raced home and told us, and we called Horry County police and reported what had happened.

"The police came to our home and interviewed the boys, and got a description of the man and the van. I later received a call from the responding officer, saying another call came in with the same M.O. from another subdivision.

"We went away for the weekend, and then on Monday several news outlets were calling me for interviews. I did one interview with WMBF, and Christian did one with WPDE. On Tuesday, an Horry County police detective came and interviewed the boys as well.

"On Wednesday, I got a call from another detective saying the case had been closed. Two boys from a local high school were apparently talking about driving around and playing this prank on kids in The Farm subdivision.

"The student information officer from the high school these boys attend got wind of it and called the police. The police came to the school, interviewed the young men, and they admitted to doing this to my children. Upon speaking with the detectives, they told me absolutely no charges would be filed against these young men because they are juveniles.

"My husband and I have two major problems with these latest developments:

"1. The police would not show our children a photo of these young men (so my boys would know the right guys were caught);

"2. What kind of a message does this send to others out there? Not a very good one.

"The police have our names and address on record. The least the family of the teens could have done would have been to ask the police to act as intermediaries in an effort to apologize to my children the traumatized victims of this whole ordeal.

"We would love to add how proud we are of our sons for knowing what to do in this situation. The detective told us his description was right on as well. Way to go, boys, we are so proud of you. "

Thanks for sharing your story with us Sue.

Jennifer Lombardi lives in Waterford Plantation. If you have a story about Waterford to share, e-mail lombardijenn@yahoo.com. If you would like to contribute information about happenings in your Carolina Forest-area neighborhood, email ycf@thesunnews.com.