Mother: Man admits he tried to lure child to truck

Atlanta police are investigating a mother's claim that a man tried to lure her 9-year-old daughter into an 18-wheeler.

Tonya Miller says her daughter was sitting on the porch of her home on Thomasville Drive in southeast Atlanta playing with a toy when a man down the street kept waving at her.  The 4th grader told Channel 2's Tom Jones she became frightened and went inside to tell her mother.

"I said mom, there's a man in a truck trying to tell me to come here," the girl said.

Miller said she walked outside, and the truck driver had pulled up in front of her yard and was walking up to the porch. She said he immediately began to apologize.

"He literally comes out I'm sorry please forgive me. Oh my God. Let me pray. Let me pray. I know I was wrong. I know I was wrong," she said he kept repeating.

Miller said the man admitted he tried to get her daughter in his truck, saying he knew she was young, but not that young.

"I'm like, 'Dude, look at my daughter. She's only nine years old, barely 4 feet tall. How old did you think she was?'" she said.

An Atlanta police arrived and arrested the man for having an open container and driving under the influence.

"He was intoxicated," Lt. Stacie Gibbs said.

Officers are investigating Miller's claim the man tried to lure her daughter into his truck but Gibbs told Jones that there was no actual threat made toward the child.

"It was just scary," the fourth-grader said, adding she just did what she was taught at school.

"If someone who you don't know, you run and go tell an adult close to you," she said.

Miller finds it odd the trucker was parked near an elementary school, a playground a library and a rec center.

"There are kids everywhere. I want the kids on alert and the parents as well," she said.

The trucker remained in jail on Tuesday. Channel 2 Action News has decided to not name the man because he is not charged in connection with the mother's allegations.