EVERETT – A would-be thief found out just how strong a mother’s love can be when he picked the wrong car to steal.
Laneil Trapp ripped the man out of her car as he attempted to steal it while she was pumping gas at an Everett station on Monday.
Inside the car was her 8-year-old daughter. Kevin Nortz / The Herald
“I couldn’t let him get away with my daughter. He could have my car, just not my daughter,” Trapp said Tuesday.
The suspect, 42, was arrested after two bystanders chased him down. He was booked into the Snohomish County Jail for investigation of attempted kidnapping, attempted theft and assault. He was being held in lieu of $75,000 bail.
Police describe the incident like this:
Trapp stopped for gas about 5:15 p.m. at the AM/PM at 4030 Rucker Ave. She noticed a man check out an unoccupied car at a gas pump and walk away.
She didn’t think anything of the man when she went to pay at an automated machine about 7 feet from her car.
But the man noticed Trapp. While she was paying for the gas, he jumped in the front seat of the unlocked vehicle.
Trapp, 27, ran to her car, thrust her hand in the door before he was able to close it, and clamped onto the man’s jacket. She was screaming at him, yelling for help and pulling at the man as hard as she could. The suspect started the car, revving the engine.
Trapp’s daughter, frightened by her mother’s screams and the “bad man’s swearing,” jumped out of the car.
Trapp, who is about 7 inches shorter than the suspect, pulled the 6-foot, 160-pound man out of the car, losing a shoe in the struggle.
The suspect seemed stunned by the woman’s strength, witness Amber Rotherick said. He looked at Rotherick and yelled, “This woman is crazy.”
The suspect ran from the station, but onlooker Glenn Magnuson wasn’t about to let him go. Magnuson, 24, had heard the commotion while he was pumping gas, saw the man stumble from the car and run.
He checked to make sure Trapp and her daughter were not injured, then followed the suspect.
“I didn’t want him to get away. I have three little sisters. That little girl would have been gone. I thought he deserved a least to go to jail,” the Marysville man said.
Magnuson and another man followed the suspect around the back of the gas station. The man eventually walked back toward the station, and Magnuson yelled for police.
Trapp’s daughter called Magnuson a hero.
Her daughter is a hero, too, Trapp said. She did the right thing in a crisis.
Trapp, her arms still sore from wrestling with the suspect, hopes her story will be a warning to other parents to lock their car doors and never leave their keys in the ignition. And her daughter will be pumping gas with her from now on, Trapp said.
“I want people to be more aware of their surroundings,” she said. “It sounds horrible, but be suspicious of people.”
Reporter Diana Hefley: 425-339-3463 or hefley@heraldnet.com.
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