‘JUST LUCKY’

Michigan Boy Armed With Slingshot Saves Sister From Kidnapping

The 13-year-old said he used “a marble and a gravel rock or something” to thwart the attempted abduction.

A 13-year-old boy in northern Michigan who used a slingshot to thwart the attempted kidnapping of his younger sister last week was “just lucky,” he told a local outlet on Wednesday. The 8-year-old girl was mushroom-hunting near her home in Alpena Township when a male suspect materialized out of the trees, according to a Michigan State Police press release. “The suspect had come through the woods onto the property and came from behind her, grabbed her like you’d see in the movies—hand over the mouth, arm around the waist—and was attempting to pull her into the woods,” Lt. John Grimshaw told WGTU last Friday. The girl screamed, and that’s when her older brother leaped into action. “So I looked out the window and saw her being abducted by a person and I’m like freaking out,” the 13-year-old, identified as Owen Burns, told 9&10 News. Panicked, he grabbed his slingshot and “a marble and a gravel rock or something,” shooting the 17-year-old suspect in the head and the chest, allowing Owen’s sister to get away. Grimshaw called Owen’s actions “extraordinary,” but the boy downplayed his heroism to 9&10 News. “I was just lucky,” he explained. “He’s just a big target because he’s not like one Pepsi can.”