A man in Oklahoma was arrested after he allegedly started a conversation with a woman at a Walmart, only to take her 1-year-old out of the shopping cart and walk off with the child.
The Tulsa Police Department announced in a press release that Marshall Dixon was charged with one count of kidnapping following an incident that took place on Tuesday, September 8.
Authorities said that the incident took place at the Walmart Supercenter on Memorial Drive in the Burning Tree neighborhood of Tulsa.
Officers reported to the scene just after 5 p.m. when they received a report about a kidnapping. The mother of the child told officers that she was shopping in the store when a man came up to her. They briefly talked about her two children before he allegedly took her 1-year-old out of her shopping cart.
“The man put the child in his own shopping cart and started walking away,” the police department said in the press release.
The woman said that she quickly confronted the man and took her child back before she locked herself and her children in the store’s bathroom. She then called 911 to report the incident.
Images from surveillance footage captured the man with his arms around a child, who was dangling over a shopping cart. The footage also revealed that the incident took place in an aisle where nonfood household items were sold.
After Walmart employees were alerted about the incident, they kicked Marshall, 50, out of the store and they called 911.
Officers later found “a man matching the suspect’s description” sitting outside the store at a nearby bus stop. The officers approached the man and asked about the alleged abduction, and he reportedly responded, “Yeah, I did that,” according to the police department.
Dixon was then arrested and booked into the Tulsa County Jail. It appears he has been released from custody, as he is not currently listed on the Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office records database viewed by Us.
The Tulsa Police Department did not immediately respond to Us’ request for comment regarding the case. The investigation into the alleged abduction remains ongoing.
After the police department shared the information about the case via Facebook, several social media users took to the comments section to weigh in on the crime.
“This is the most casual story of a kidnapping I have ever read,” one person read, while another chimed in, “Wow. I think he was looking for a free pass to jail.”
