Girl followed aboard school bus in North Carolina
RALEIGH -- It was a terrifying start to a Wednesday morning for a teenage girl trying to go to school in Raleigh.
Fourteen-year-old Shanya Hunter was walking to her bus stop near Camden and Davie Streets when she saw a man talking to some girls at her stop, asking to use someone's cell phone.
"He asked to use someone's phone and I let him use mine," said Shanya, a ninth grader at Enloe High School, who said that's a mistake she'll never make again. "I got on the bus and he got on behind me. I just stopped because I was shocked."
Arrest papers allege 35-year-old Jermaine Johnson followed Hunter for several blocks before he followed her on to her school bus.
"Everybody was saying 'get off the bus,' like they were scared," said Shanya.
She said Johnson told the bus driver someone was trying to kill him and he needed a ride. The driver told him no and got on the phone, and so did Hunter.
"As soon as she got on the school bus she called her dad," said Rita Hunter, Shanya's mom, who said this was one of her worst fears come true. "They took a lot of the bus stops away. So the kids are having to walk further. So I fear for her every morning. The fact that he was able to get on that school bus, was just frightening to me within itself."
Shanya said Johnson stayed in the bus stairwell while he talked to the bus driver, who had started driving.
"She started driving off with the lights on. I guess that means something, and that's when the police came, and he got off the bus," said Rita Hunter.
The terrifying ride ended less than half-a-mile from the bus stop at the intersection of Tarboro and Gatling. It is an area that is not far from Hunter Elementary School and not far from Davie Street Park, where both Shanya and a neighbor remember seeing Johnson several times.
Johnson is being held at the Wake County Detention Center on a secure $500,000 bond on charges of trespassing and misdemeanor stalking.
As for Shanya, her mom said she's learned a valuable lesson about why she shouldn't talk to strangers. The family also said Shanya's dad will now be walking her to the bus stop.
