Only On 13: Pueblo Girl Talks About Being Lured By Stranger

A 10-year-old Pueblo girl got away from a man who told her to get in his car Monday afternoon.

Angel Salazar was walking home from Irving Elementary School at about 4:30 p.m. when the man approached her near Cheyenne Avenue and W. 23rd Street.

“He stopped and he said that my mom said I had to go with him,” said Angel.

She said she told him to leave her alone and started running. She said she was saying a prayer in her head.

“I was like, ‘Please let this man go away. Please, please, please,'” said Angel. “Then that car came up and then he left.”

She said a neighbor had pulled up, prompting the man to drive away.

“I thought he was going to get out of the car but he didn’t,” Angel said.

Her grandmother said Angel was out of breath and crying hysterically when she got home. They called the school and police.

The story has spread among neighbors in the area. Lupe Maestas said his 11-year-old daughter won’t be walking alone anymore.

“She has one of her girlfriends who lives over by the school, so there’s no more walking, not even in the day,” said Maestas.

Angel said she usually walks home from school with her brother, but he was staying later than her on Monday. Angel’s grandmother said she’ll pick her up from school from now on. She said she taught the little girl what to do when a stranger approaches. Angel hopes other kids will get the message too.

“Don’t talk to strangers, just tell them no, and then run and tell your parents,” she said.

Angel said the man was driving a gray four-door sedan, that wasn’t particularly old or new looking. She said he was an older white man with a wrinkly face wearing jeans and a gray sweater. Call Pueblo Police at (719) 553-2538.

Angel Salazar has been through a lot in her young life. KRDO Newschannel 13 talked to her in December when her 3-year-old brother was killed in a house fire.