A Maryland father found himself in a terrifying situation when a man broke into his house and kidnapped his two young children.
Deputies from the Frederick County Sheriff's Office received a call about an abduction in progress on February 26 at 3:45 p.m. The call came from the father, who told officers that a man had come to his residence and knocked on his door looking for an unknown party. When that man came to his door a second time, the man assaulted the father and broke into the house.
The father revealed that the man took off with his two children, ages 2 and 6, and drove off. The dad quickly got in his truck and followed him as he spoke with police.
"[He] knocked on the door and asked to speak to someone who wasn't there," Todd Wivell, public information officer for the sheriff's office, told People.
"The father said, 'no this person is not there.'"
"He came back a second time, knocked on the door, and the father answered. He had a dog with him now," Wivell continued.
"He made entry into the house, assaulted the father. He then went into the home. He took the children and went and got into his vehicle and left."
The father told police dispatchers he was following the man. Police were able to approach the man, 40-year-old Christopher Wade Shultz, when he allegedly parked his vehicle in a local business's parking lot.
"When the deputies approached Shultz, he failed to obey their commands and got out and opened the backdoor of his vehicle, deploying a Rottweiler dog and holding it by his side," the sheriff's office noted.
Deputies kept Shultz talking long enough to get a glance into the car's backseat, where one of the children was spotted under a blanket.
"So then other deputies responded as backup and they were able to get Shultz to calm down and able to take him into custody without incident," Wivell noted.
Police arrested Shultz. He is currently facing two counts of abduction for children under 12, two counts of kidnapping for children under 16, two counts of false imprisonment, one count of home invasion, third-degree burglary, trespassing on posted property, and second-degree assault.
The children were safely returned to their father after the incident. The sheriff's office confirmed that "Schultz had no relation or rights to the children." He was, however, staying on the same farmland property as the father and his children.
