7-year-old Elkhart girl says man tried to lure her into truck with money

ELKHART, Ind. -- An Elkhart neighborhood is on edge after a stranger tried luring a little girl into his truck. The girl was able to get away and now they're sharing their frightening ordeal in hopes of warning other parents.

7-year-old Marija Funches spent Monday afternoon like she does most -- playing in front of her family's Freemont Street home, but things took a turn when a strange man pulled up in a truck.

"He was bald headed. He had tattoos on his face and arms," said Funches.

She says, he offered her money to come to his car.

"He said, come here. You want two dollars? I said yeah and then he gave me the money and then he pull my pinky and tried to get me in the car," said Funches.

That's when her father Wavie Bonds came riding up the street on his moped.

“I said my dad is coming and came back up on the sidewalk," said Funches.

"I was coming down the street and I seen a truck in front of my house and I seen my daughter running back through the grass," said Bonds.

The truck then sped off.

"I believe it wasn't for Wavie down the street on his moped when the truck was out there he could have snatched her and really got my daughter in the truck with him," said Maria Simpson, Funches' mother.

Police tell the family they have stepped up patrols in the neighborhood, but they say they want all parents to be on the lookout.

"People's got to watch out for their kids now, because if it happened here it can happen somewhere else," said Bonds.

In the meantime they've remindedtheir daughter of the rules they've always told her.

"Don't go to nobody's car," said Funches.

They're hoping others in this neighborhood and everywhere will do the same.

The man is described as white, bald and has tatoos on his head and arms. He was driving a gold envoy with darl tinted windows.

If you have any information contact the Elkhart Police Department.