NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — "Give me your baby." Those are the terrifying words a mother says she faced as a man tried to snatch her child from her arms in Hermitage.
"And just like that she was almost gone," Hanna Whitehouse stated with tears in her eyes.
In a matter of seconds, the mother of two was facing her greatest fear.
"I was terrified," Whitehouse said. "I've heard of kidnappings and children going missing, but it's never hit home."
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Sunday night, however, it did. It was around 10:15 p.m. at the Thorton's on Lebanon Pike. Whitehouse said she was talking with some of the gas station employees while holding her one-year-old girl Ensleigh, when a man walked in and attempted to snatch her daughter from her arms.
"I was holding her like that so when he went to grab her, he went to grab her," she showed while grabbing at her daughter's arms.
The man then demanded her daughter.
"He said, 'Give me your baby, give me your baby,' and then he said, 'I just need your baby.'"
Some employees of the gas station stepped in and backed the man off, as the mom said she ran out of the store frightened for their lives and drove away.
"I'm scared, I'm scared to take my children out. I'm just I'm scared," she cried.
Metro police released surveillance images of the suspect, saying he was between 30 to 35 years old, around 5-foot-5 and driving a four-door maroon Honda sedan.
"It doesn't seem like this was the first time he's ever tried this," she said.
The mother of two now fears taking her children out in public, warning others while fearful someone else could be a victim.
"For it to happen, it's terrifying. If something happened to one of my kids, it would end my world."
If you have any information that could help in this case, you are asked to contact Metro police at 615-862-8600.