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Tragic kidnapping attempt leaves Texas truck stop in shock

A 63-year-old grandmother who was trying to protect her 12-year-old granddaughter was shot and killed at the Love’s truck stop in Amarillo, TX, last night.

The assailant, a 58-year-old man named Gary Don Carner, later abducted another young girl before being shot and killed by a sheriff’s deputy.

Potter County sheriff Brian Thomas told Land Line Now that Sharrel Blankenbaker had stopped at the Love’s with her three grandchildren and that they’d gone into the store for cold drinks.

“The kids came back out and were getting in the vehicle, and the suspect went up and tried to grab the 12-year-old,” Potter said. “She came out ... and stepped in front of the kids – you know, just to block her kids. I mean, what any parent or any grandparent would do.”

Potter said she pushed Carner back, told him to leave them alone, and that’s when she was shot.”

Carner left in his pickup truck, but then forced an 11-year-old girl who was walking along the road into his pickup at gunpoint. She managed to jump out of the moving pickup just as deputies arrived.

When Carner opened fire on them, they shot back, killing him.

Sheriff Thomas says Carner had earlier tried to abduct a 31-year-old woman as she pumped gas into her car at the Love’s, but that she managed to run away.

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