Boy, 6, Saves 10-Year-Old Girl From Attempted Kidnapping in Chicago

Kaylen Woodard, a 6-year-old from the South Side of Chicago, saved his 10-year-old neighbor from abduction by bravely fighting off the man who tried to snatch her away on Thursday evening.

It’s a story that could have had a tragic, heart-breaking ending, but Kaylen refused to let the stranger take his friend away without a fight.

Kaylen was playing outside with his neighbor, 10-year-old Marcy Jones, on Thursday when things took a turn for the worse.

As Marcy rode her scooter, a man approached her and put his hand over the young girl’s mouth.

The youngsters were only a feet away from their homes and Kaylen gave Marcy the chance she needed to run for it.

The 6-year-old hero told KMOV that he kicked the man several times, allowing Marcy to make a run for it.

“He tried to hold her mouth,” Kaylen explained. “The only way she got away is because I kicked him in the back of the leg and the outside of his leg.”

According to ABC 7, Marcy’s mother, Tracey Edwards, was checking on her daughter through the window when she spotted the little girl running frantically toward the house with her scooter in her hands.

“She came in the house and she was panting,” Edwards said. “And she was explaining that a man had grabbed her.”

6-year-old boy fights off neighbor's kidnapper The would-be kidnapper was already gone by the time Tracey went outside to try to find him.

Tracey says Kaylen is nothing short of a hero and she was “blessed that he was there.”

As for the little hero’s mother, she’s extraordinarily proud of her son.

“I can’t stop talking about him,” said Diane Blakely, Kaylen’s mother. “I’m still in a state of shock. Still by him being so young and he did that for a friend. That’s amazing.”

The Chicago Police Department described the would-be kidnapper as “a white or Hispanic male, 18 to 20 years old, has short black hair with light complexion.”

The police also said he was last seen driving a white convertible with red seats.

While the man has been able to elude capture so far,  members of this South Side Chicago community are just thankful that he didn’t get away with an innocent little girl.

Still independent.

We hope this story was worth your time. For over 14 years, Atlanta Black Star has stayed Black-owned and independently run. We didn't get here by waiting on ad budgets that were never built to prioritize us. Our readers did that.

Corporate support for Black media has always been thin. Outlets like ours get roughly 1% of the $170 billion spent on U.S. advertising each year, and that margin is shrinking further as advertisers walk back the DEI-linked commitments they made in 2020. That's the backdrop. It's not why we're asking.

The wider picture isn't any steadier. Newspaper ad revenue has fallen more than 80% since 2005, and local newsrooms are closing at a rate of roughly two a week nationwide. When outlets go under, it's rarely the ones built to center a Black perspective from the ground up that get to stick around.

We know a request for support isn't why you came here. But without readers choosing to fund this work directly, the depth of reporting we can do at home and abroad shrinks along with everyone else's. If you're not in a position to give, that doesn't change how much we value you as a reader.

If you are able to, a recurring contribution does more for us than a single one-time gift, because it lets us plan the next investigation instead of just the next invoice. It takes about 30 seconds, no long form, no account. Thank you for continuing to support independent journalism and freedom of the press.

Back to top