Neighbors chased suspect, helped police during alleged kidnapping in Valley Station

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - As Prentiss Weatherford sat on his porch on the eve of Independence Day, he saw what he thought was a kidnapping.

“It happened quick,” Weatherford said. “He came around the corner, parked his car, (and) got out within 15 seconds.”

According to a police report, several people saw Robby Wildt, 40, drive through the 4700 block of Haney Way in Valley Station around 5:40 p.m. on July 3. They said he took a child and put her in his car before driving away.

Weatherford told WAVE 3 News he and his father, Terry, were just two of those witnesses.

“One of our cars actually got broken into so that led up to us being outside, trying to figure out where to place cameras on our house,” Weatherford said. “I was looking down the road, (and) a car came around the corner from the stop sign, parked in the middle of the street. He got out ... (There was) a little girl in front of her car on her bicycle. He just grabbed her by the collar, threw her bike, threw her in the passenger’s seat, made his way on down the road.”

That’s when Weatherford said he and his father acted; they followed Wildt’s car, taking notes of the last three digits of his license plate before he sped away. Weatherford encountered a police officer who had been called to the scene a few minutes later.

“Talked to him,” he said. “He was on his way over here. We gave him the last three (digits) of the license plate.”

Officers eventually found Wildt a short distance from where Weatherford saw his car. The girl was found unharmed in the front passenger seat of the car, the police report said.

In his statement to police, Wildt claimed that he saw the girl playing in the street, circled around the block, and grabbed her from the side of the road. After she started crying, Wildt said he tried to calm her down. He told officers he realized what he was doing was wrong and tried to bring her back where he’d grabbed her because he was “afraid he may hurt her” and “he felt bad for doing what he had done.”

Wildt is being held on a $1 million bond for one count of kidnapping a minor, and he was booked into Louisville Metro Corrections.

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