At the time of Lucy’s call, Oil City police were in the midst of investigating an odd occurrence that had been reported earlier that night. At 8:06 pm, local resident Dan Paden had been walking along Reed Street, a leafy suburban neighbourhood lined with residential houses when he sighted a young girl dressed in a top and shorts walking alone down West First Street. She was approaching the Reed and West First intersection in front of a medical centre across the road from the Presbyterian church.

A tall, thin, scruffy-looking man wearing an army jacket and baseball cap was walking in the same direction on the opposite sidewalk, smoking a cigarette. Dan observed the man cross to the other side of the road before appearing to scoop the girl up and run around the corner. Seconds later, he heard a muffled scream. Dan ran towards the intersection and witnessed a small, boxy dark red sedan vehicle speed away. It looked to be an Oldsmobile with Pennsylvania state license plates, but it moved too quickly for Dan to catch the plate number. Although he hadn’t seen the man put the girl in the car, both he and the girl were now gone. Dan immediately began banging on the doors of nearby houses until a woman answered, before frantically telling her: “I’ve just seen a little girl kidnapped and I need to call the police.”