Cobb County

Parents say strangers used toothpaste to try to abduct daughter

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — The parents of a 12-year-old girl are warning other families after they say someone tried to abduct their daughter near a bus stop.

The parents told Channel 2’s Chris Jose that a woman in a van pulled up next to their daughter and tried to lure her into the van with a tube of toothpaste.

“I can tell you right now, for your own good, if you’re seeing this, I hope the police find you before I do. Because I am on a seek-and-destroy mission,” father Matt Borlenghi said, looking straight into our camera.

Matt Borlenghi told Jose that two people tried to abduct his daughter near the bus stop along Portabello Lane and Lower Roswell Road in Marietta on Thursday morning.

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“The minivan backed up right next to her, lady rolled down the window and said, ‘Excuse me, can you come here? Can you give this to my daughter at the bus stop?’” Matt Borlenghi said.

Matt Borlenghi said his daughter found that strange. Not only did the woman have a tube of toothpaste in her hands, Matt Borlenghi said his daughter is the only student scheduled for pickup or drop-off at the bus stop.

“The lady started getting insistent, saying, ‘It’s OK, come here. It’s OK.’ And then my daughter saw a man moving in the back seat. There was no one in the passenger seat,” mother Heather Borlenghi told Jose. “My daughter is really smart. She listened to her gut. And she knew it was wrong and ran.”

Heather Borlenghi said she was home and heard her daughter yell for help.

“And she just bolted to the house,” Heather Borlenghi said.

The couple in a dark gray Honda Odyssey with a white sticker in the back sped away.

The Borlenghis have filed a police report and told administrators at Dickerson Middle School about the incident.

Now, they’re warning other families.

“The only people I’m interested in scaring are the people who are doing this,” Matt Borlenghi told Jose.

Moving forward, the Borlenghis said they'll walk their daughter to and from the bus stop.

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