When a teenage girl got to her car after work, she was confused to see a flannel shirt on her windshield. Suddenly, she realized what was happening — her life was in grave danger. Now, she’s sending a warning about what this means if it happens to you.
A Michigan teen is warning others about a possible kidnapping tactic after finding a flannel shirt on the windshield of her car. She realized that is was likely put there for a very sinister reason.
Ashley Hardacre was leaving her job at a Flint, Michigan, mall when she noticed a flannel shirt tangled around her windshield wipers, Daily Mail reported. The 19-year-old then saw two vehicles hovering around her car, which made her suspicious.
“I got to my car and locked the doors behind me immediately as I always do and noticed that there was a blue flannel shirt on my windshield,” Ashley wrote on Facebook. “There were two cars near me and one was running so I immediately felt uneasy and knew I couldn’t get out to get it off,” she further recalled.
“At first I thought maybe someone had just thrown it on my car for some odd reason,” she continued, adding, “I used my windshield wipers to try to get them off but the shirt was completely wrapped around my wiper blade.”
“I had seen posts lately about people finding things under their windshield wipers in the burton/Flint area as an attempt to get girls out of their cars and distracted,” Ashley continued. “Luckily I knew better than to remove the shirt with cars around me so I drove over to a place where I was safe and quickly rolled down my window and got the shirt off,” she added.
“I don’t know why the shirt was on my car but it had to have been intentional the way it was put on there,” she wrote. “I really can’t think of another reason as to why someone would put it on my car.” The Michigan teen then concluded, “I’m so glad my parents had informed me that it was happening in our area, I just never thought it would potentially happen to my car.”
Ashley Hardacre’s post subsequently went viral, garnering more than 100,000 shares and capturing the attention of local police, who were at a loss to explain the incident. “Nothing like this has ever happened before,” Flint Township Police Detective Sergeant Brad Wangler told CBS News. “There have been no other incidences like this.”
Meanwhile, Ashley says she hopes her story will help raise awareness about the potential kidnapping tactic. “It is something that you never expect that would ever happen to you or someone would ever try to harm you in any way, but I was just so shocked,” she told WHSV.
“And now, I’m kind of past the scared, I’m more of — I want other people to know that it is, you know, something that can happen to them,” added the 19-year-old. Thankfully, someone took the time to tell Ashley about this or her story could have had a much different ending.
Please share this story to raise awareness surrounding this kidnapping tactic being used on unsuspecting young girls. You never know, you might just save a life — the knowledge of it very well could have saved Ashley’s, and luckily, she’s here to warn others because she recognized the potential danger before it was too late and knew just what to do.