Family Staged Fake Kidnapping To Teach 6-Year-Old Boy Stranger Danger, Says Child Was ‘Too Nice’

A Missouri family is facing criminal charges after they staged a fake kidnapping to teach a 6-year-old boy about stranger danger. The boy was lured into a truck after he got off the school bus, blindfolded, tied up, and verbally harassed. The child’s mother, grandmother, and aunt were all in on the staged kidnapping.

ABC News reports that the Missouri boy was kidnapped by a family friend as a method to teach the boy a lesson. The family says the boy was “too nice” to people and that he needed to learn about stranger danger. Therefore, the boy’s mother, grandmother, and aunt devised a plan to scare the boy. They enlisted the help of the aunt’s co-worker who would lure the boy into his truck as he got off the bus.

The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office says that the boy was lured into the aunt’s co-worker’s truck as the boy exited the school bus on Monday. Once in the truck, the man “tied the child’s hands and feet with plastic bags and blindfolded him with a jacket.” The man also scared the child into submission by telling him that he would “never see his mommy again” and that he would be “nailed to the wall of a shed.” The boy continued to cry so the kidnapper presented a handgun to scare the child.

With the child bound and blindfolded, the man drove around for a while before returning to the boy’s Troy, Missouri, home. Once at the home, the man led the blindfolded boy to the basement. Once in the basement, USA Today reports that a family member removed the boy’s pants and told him he could be sold into “sex slavery.”

After spending some time in the basement, the family finally took the blindfold off the boy and lectured him on stranger danger.

“The victim remained in the basement for some time before he was unbound and told to go upstairs, where the victim’s family lectured him about Stranger Danger.”

According to the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, those responsible for the fake kidnapping included Denise Kroutil, 38, the boy’s aunt, Nathan Wynn Firoved, 23, the aunt’s co-worker, Rose Brewer, 58, the boy’s grandmother, and Elizabeth Hupp, 25, the boy’s mother. All four individuals have been charged in the case and are being held on $250,000 bond. The charges include felony kidnapping, felonious restraint, and felony abuse and neglect of a child.

What do you think should happen to the family members and co-worker responsible for terrifying the 6-year-old boy with a fake kidnapping?