Michael Wayne Cook, 42, is now in custody after stealing a car with a 10-year-old girl in it.
He is charged with especially aggravated kidnapping and vehicle theft after he jumped into a 2005 Dodge Stratus that was left unlocked with the motor running just before 7 AM this morning at the gas pumps of the Shell Market at 822 Murfreesboro Pike. A 41-year-old mother left her 10-year-old daughter in the backseat of the car while she went inside the market to pay for gas. She looked out of the store window to see someone driving away in her car with her daughter.
A short time later, Cook pulled into the Shell Market at 601 Fesslers Lane and left the 10-year-old girl unharmed with store clerks before driving away in the Dodge.
The vehicle was eventually tracked to Clarksville, where police found the Dodge parked with no one in it on Kraft Street. About three blocks from the car, they came across Cook. Inside his jacket pocket was the key to the vehicle. Cook was returned to Nashville where, during an interview with Detective David Studer, he admitted to taking the car with the girl inside. Cook is jailed in lieu of $56,000 bond.
