Chapel Hill man arrested in attempted kidnapping

Theodore James Walker, 26, of 108 Timber Hollow Court, is charged with second-degree kidnapping, assault on a female and assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury.

Chapel Hill police said Walker tried to abduct an 18-year-old woman around 2 p.m. near the intersection of Rosemary and Columbia streets.

Two men were driving by and saw the suspect dragging the woman to a vehicle in the parking lot behind the RBC Bank, 101 E. Rosemary St., police said. They pulled into the parking lot to intervene and the suspect let the woman go unharmed.

Allie Mendelsohn said she witnessed the attempted kidnapping.

“Just after I crossed Rosemary, a car came flying out of the bank parking lot, this little white sedan, just totally unexpected and I stood on my brakes and put my hand on the horn,” Mendelsohn recalled.

As Walker was driving away, he hit one of the good Samaritans with his car, investigators said.

“All of a sudden, this person just fell off the hood and got hit by the car on his side, and turned and fell onto the ground,” Mendelsohn said.

The man hit by the car was transported to a nearby hospital with minor injuries.

Police said Walker abandoned the vehicle at Mill Creek apartments. He was taken into custody around 4 p.m. after police saw him walking out of a wooded area near Timber Hollow Apartments on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

“I’m so glad they caught him,” Mendelsohn said.

Authorities said the woman might have been jogging when the attempted abduction happened.

"What makes this so alarming was the fact that it occurred at two o'clock in the afternoon in an area where there is just a lot of pedestrian traffic as well as vehicle traffic," Lt. Kevin Gunter said.

Walker was being held Wednesday in the Orange County jail under a $500,000 bond. His first court appearance is set for Thursday.