Police: Woman kidnapped 9-year-old boy from Pittsburgh public pool

PITTSBURGH — A 9-year-old boy wasn't hurt after police said he was kidnapped outside a public pool in Pittsburgh.

It happened just after 6 p.m. outside the Sue Murray Pool on the North Side.

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The boy told police a woman he didn't know first approached him and his friends at the Sunoco gas station on Cedar Avenue and that she followed them to the pool.

After swimming, the boy eventually went to leave by himself and that's when he told police she grabbed his arm and walked away with him down Sandusky Street.

"I was shocked and in disbelief my son is not a child that would just willingly go with a stranger," Erika Strausser, the boy's mother, said.

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From there, the boy said they got onto a bus and rode around the city for a while, where she allegedly told people they were related.

The boy's cousin saw what happened and alerted a lifeguard, who called 911.

The boy told police the woman took him onto a bus, telling people they were related, before eventually allowing him to go back to the pool, where his friends were calling for him.

The woman apparently walked in another direction, but witnesses at the pool identified her to police and they arrested her.

Karastine Muyango, 18, of Braddock, is charged with kidnapping for ransom.

She's being held at the Allegheny County Jail.

Cox Media Group