West Virginia Woman Who Recanted Child Abduction Story Gets Charged By Police

Santana Renee Adams, the West Virginia woman who told a harrowing story about scaring off an Ethiopian man who was trying to abduct her five-year-old daughter in a Huntington, West Virginia mall, has been charged for falsely reporting a crime.

Adams claimed that a man, identified as  Mohamed Fathy Hussein Zayan, grabbed her daughter by the hair and tried to abduct her in an Old Navy store and that she was able to prevent the abduction by pointing a gun at him.

Adams called 911 on April 1 and told the operator that a male suspect of Middle Eastern descent tried to grab her daughter. She then told police that she “pulled out a firearm and the male suspect fled the scene.” Her five-year-old daughter even backed her story.

Shortly thereafter, mall security and Barboursville police observed 56-year-old Zayan walking near the mall’s food court and detained him. He was booked on felony charges of attempted kidnapping and held on a $200,000 bond with his face splashed all over local media and spent the night in jail.

Meanwhile, Adams and her concocted story went viral. The Barboursville police even shared her story on their facebook page and people applauded her bravery for protecting her daughter and defending herself with her right to bear arms.

But according to the Washington Post, the story began to fall apart when mall security cameras proved there were serious inconsistencies in Adams’ story.

Michelle Protzman, attorney for Mohamed Zayan, said there was no footage showing her client, Adams or her children near each other while shopping in the Old Navy store where the incident was supposed to have taken place and Zayan maintained that he never saw Adams.

“She actually leaves very unaffected before (Zayan) leaves the store,” Protzman said. “(She’s) just walking out with her kids as if nothing ever happened. She is just kind of moseying outside of the store.”

The story fell apart even further when store employees could not corroborate her account of the incident. Police then asked Adams to come into the station and her second statement was completely inconsistent with her first version. She then tried to claim the entire situation was a misunderstanding based on “cultural differences,” and eventually tried to just recant her story altogether.

Now prosecutors have dropped all charges against Zayan and are have charged Santana Adams with falsely reporting an emergency.

Her bond was set at $20,000 and she now faces a fine of up to $500 and a sentence of up to 6 months in jail.