Heather Bogan was in the zone, listening to music while she ran through Cincinnati’s Ault Park last weekend when she said a man pulled up beside her and said, “Get in the car.” She had run up and back down a hill before noticing him in her periphery.
Escaping the worst nightmare of many female runners, Bogan told Fox 19 News that she was nearly abducted. After the man first approached her, Bogan ignored him and kept running. Then he pulled up beside her again, screeching his tires.
“I took my earbuds out, and I said, ‘Can I help you?’” she said to Fox 19. That’s when he cursed and told her again to get in his car.
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At that point, Bogan knew she was in real danger. She ran back up the hill and tried stopping the first driver she saw, another woman. “You could tell she knew something was wrong or going on,” said Bogan. “She looked scared, and she kept going around me.”
Bogan usually runs with mace or a taser, but she brought neither with her on this run because she figured she’d be safe running in a busy park in the middle of the day.
After the first driver declined to help, Bogan says she ran into the street, getting in front of another vehicle. “I made him stop, and I went up to his car,” she said. She told the driver, “There’s this gentleman that is trying to get me to get in his car, and he’s following me, and I do not know him.” The man let her sit in his car and the would-be abductor, deterred, sped off.
Bogan called the police and filed a report. She did not see what the car’s make and model was, but passed along that the suspect’s vehicle was silver with tinted windows and no license plate. The police have not yet found the suspect or his car, but the experience angered Bogan, and she spoke with the news station hoping that she could prevent the criminal from harming anyone else.
“I worry that maybe that could have been a young girl or someone walking a family dog or thought maybe this guy was going to need help and approached the car and got too close to the vehicle, and he could have grabbed somebody,” she said to Fox 19.
Local authorities urged women to be proactive in similar situations, but attacks on female runners are an all too familiar story, and they happen at all hours, under myriad circumstances. As Runner’s World reported in 2022, following the rape and murder of 25-year-old Sydney Sutherland, who disappeared while running in 2020: “We need to change the narrative about how to prevent violence against women.”
Callie Marie Rennison, Ph.D., a professor and director of equity at the University of Colorado, who studies violence against women, told Runner’s World that fault is often misguided. “People often blame victims, because it makes those people feel less vulnerable and more in control,” she said. “As if they would have done something to avoid the situation.” Indeed, the correctives should be directed at violent men.
Abby Carney is a writer and journalist in New York. A former D1 college runner and current amateur track athlete, she's written about culture and characters in running and outdoor sports for Runner's World, Like the Wind Magazine, The New York Times, and other outlets. She also writes about things that have nothing to do with running, and was previously the editor of a food magazine.
