WILKINSON COUNTY, Ga. — "As I turned my emergency lights on, my blue lights on, the vehicle sped up, and I said, 'Whoa, this definitely is not right,'" said investigator Kenneth Morgan.
When Morgan was driving along Highway 441 on Wednesday afternoon, he was expecting just a routine traffic stop until the trunk opened and a woman came running towards him.
"I kept looking at the female and I recognized her -- she's my mom's and auntie's best friend. They're all retired and they hang out together and all that, they shop, they take trips together," says Morgan.
The woman was Ruby Smith of Milledgeville.
"She was just hysterical and frantic. She recognized me when she came up the hill, she said, 'Kenny, he grabbed me and kidnapped me,' and I said, 'What?'"
Morgan soon learned from her that the man who kidnapped her was Willie Wilkerson, a former Baldwin County Public Works employee.
Booking records show that this is not Wilkerson's first time in trouble with the law. His arrests go back 30 years, where he was first charged with simple battery, theft by taking, and a suspended license. Then, he was put on probation, and most recently, in 2017, he was charged with fraud.
If you ask Morgan, he says he was just doing his job. He was at the right place at the right time.
"She said, 'Kenny, thank you for being here, thank you for being here,' and I didn't know what I was doing other than trying to help and stop a person and stop a vehicle."
Wilkerson had apparently been hiding in the woods since Wednesday. Someone reported seeing him at the Highway 441 bypass near Irwinton Road late Friday afternoon.