A Missouri man has been charged with stalking, kidnapping, and child endangerment after he allegedly followed a woman home from a Target store earlier this month and grabbed her while she was holding her toddler son.
Joshua Allen York, 30, claimed he struck up a conversation with his victim at the store and she invited him home with her but changed her mind when they arrived, the Springfield Daily Citizen reported.
He said that made him angry, so he demanded money from her, then left when she started screaming.
A probable cause statement told a different story. Police say York was wandering around the store when he saw the woman and started following her. After she checked out and got in her car, he got in his own vehicle and followed. She arrived at her apartment complex and began carrying groceries inside, leaving her sleeping 2-year-old son in her vehicle while she did so.
On the last trip, she picked up her son and purse to head inside but “got a feeling she should look behind her.” That’s when she saw York hiding behind a car parked beside hers. He stood up and walked toward her, and the woman yelled, “What are you doing?”
At that point, York rushed to her, grabbed her around the waist, and began dragging her to the parking lot. Still holding her son, the woman fought back and screamed. A witness who was driving in the parking lot at the time heard the “bloody murder scream” and ran toward her, seeing York flee to his black SUV — after shoving the woman and her son to the ground — and drive away, Law&Crime reported.
Police used surveillance video from the apartment complex, a gas station, and traffic cameras to identify York as the suspect. He was arrested last week and is being held without bond.
York has a previous conviction for disturbing the peace and was initially charged with terroristic threats in that case, the Daily Citizen said.
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[Featured image: Joshua Allen York/Greene County Jail]
