Fort Worth

Hero Pastor Speaks Out About Rescue of Abducted Fort Worth Girl

Good Samaritans find the suspect's vehicle in a hotel parking lot

A day after he helped police locate a missing 8-year-old girl, pastor Jeff King recounts the moments that lead up to her rescue.

"I was sitting at home with my wife when a friend texted and said that our friends' daughter had been kidnapped. All I could think is what are we going to do to help?" said Jeff King, pastor at Bear Creek Bible Church in Keller.

So he got in his car and starting searching for the suspect's vehicle. A friend offered to join him.

"We were told by detectives at the scene that the best places to check are hotels, apartments and parks." he said.

It was around 6:30 p.m. Saturday when the girl and her mother were walking in their Fort Worth neighborhood. A man grabbed the girl and pushed her in his car despite her mother's attempts to save her.

King, a care and missions pastor at Bear Creek Bible, is a childhood friend of the girl's parents though he hadn't spoken to them in 16 years when he heard about her abduction.

He and a friend started canvassing Fort Worth looking for the suspect's car. They searched until after midnight when they got a tip from someone that they should check out a hotel in Forest Hill. When they arrived they found nothing but they then drove by the Wood Springs Suites hotel nearby and pulled into the parking lot.

"We started looking at different cars like they were suggesting. We saw one car and were like, 'It's got to be this car.'" King said.

King called police and it was just a matter of time before they figured out the girl was inside of the hotel and they were able to rescue her. He said he'll never forget the moment he learned they had located the little girl.

"It was a crazy moment. I asked police, 'Did I hear that right? Did they find her? Is she safe?' he said. "Then finally one officer said, 'Yes sir, they have her."

Police allowed King to be the one to call the girl's parents and tell them the little girl had been found alive. He said there's no explanation for why they pulled into the parking lot of that hotel, which was miles away from where she had been abducted, other than divine intervention.

"God literally led us to this place. It was not on my itinerary, I was not trying to go there, we just drove by. It was divine intervention, 100 percent," he said.

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