Port Orange man tries to buy 8-year-old girl from mother at Walmart, police say

PORT ORANGE, Fla. (AP) - Would you sell your child for $200,000? That's what one shopper at Walmart allegedly asked a woman and her daughter.

“Hi, I need an officer at the Port Orange Walmart. I had a man approach me and tried to offer me a hundred thousand dollars for my daughter,” a shaken Tracy Nigh tells 911 operators after her run-in with 81-year-old Hellmuth Kolb.

It didn't stop with just the offer. Nigh said when they tried to walk away, Kolb grabbed the eight-year-old girl. “Yes, he touched her leg, and also grabbed her arm and kissed it when we were trying to get away from him,” Kolb tells operators.

“It was very shocking - absolutely shocking - it was right there in the public eye!” Nigh later said.

She said her daughter hasn't been able to sleep since they learned Kolb got out on bond. “We're all just really upset.”

When we stopped by Kolb's house no one answered the door, but his neighbor Ron Allsop hoped it was just a misunderstanding.

“I don't know what that's all about. All I can say is that in the neighborhood, he's a good guy. We see him at the mailbox,” he said, “a gentleman, as far as we know.”

The police report says Kolb - who's from Austria - may have also approached another mother and daughter like this about a month ago. Nigh said they just want to make sure this is the last time this happens.

“We just want to cooperate and make sure he never has the chance to do this again,” she said.

Kolb told police he remembers the meeting Nigh and her daughter - saying the little girl was very pretty. He didn't remember grabbing the girl, but police say Walmart surveillance video caught the whole thing.