Kali Bridwell says she was just a block from her house in a quiet Sugar Land neighborhood Tuesday afternoon.
"I was running and I had my iPod on, so I wasn't paying attention and I didn't notice that a guy had pulled up in front of me," said Kali.
The Clements High School freshman says the man got out of his pickup truck. She thought he was asking for directions.
"He asked me my name and I wasn't thinking and I told him Kali," she said.
Then she says he asked her age. And she began walking away.
"I turned this way and he tried to grab me," said Kali.
As the man drove off, Kali called her mom at work. The dental hygienist says she immediately began asking her daughter questions about what the man looked like and taking notes.
"We've always gone over what ifs and I think that is very important to continue all the way up until they are out of high school," said Debbi Horak, Kali's mother.
Sugar Land police Captain Gary Cox says the man may have been in the neighborhood before. Kali says she later recalled the same man walking by their house two weeks earlier and down the street at the aquatic center on Austin Parkway, two siblings were approached on St. Patrick's Day.
"They indicated he appeared to have been crying and he asked them if they had seen someone, and of course, they ignored him and pretty much kept going as well," said Cox.
Thursday afternoon, Kali described the man to a sketch artist at Sugar Land police.
"It was buzzed right here and he had little waves on the top," Kali said, describing the man.
"She did very good and is very brave," said Horak. "I'm very proud of her."
And Kali has a message about her close call.
"If you're gonna run with your iPod on, don't get too into your music and not pay attention," she said.
Police say they do have a person of interest with whom they'd like to talk in this case. It's a man named Mario Enrique Garcia Santizo and if you know where he is, you're asked to call Sugar Land police. Police also have a possible description of a vehicle, which is a white single cab pickup with tinted windows, license plate number 81K-BW1
