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Group Of Linda Mothers Stop, Detain Alleged Kidnapper In The Act

LINDA (CBS13) - A Yuba County woman is in custody facing kidnapping charges for trying to take two young children from a Linda apartment complex.

"All I heard was, 'she got my kids,'" Alicia Motley said.

Motley is one of the mothers at Yuba Garden apartments in Linda where the scary scene unfolded.

A group of mothers stopped a woman from allegedly kidnapping two young boys, ages 5 and 8.

"There are a lot of children here, and it's crazy," Motley said.

One mother told me the alleged kidnapper first led her 5-year-old boy out of the sandbox with his toys and was walking to the parking lot holding his hand when the boy's mom grabbed her son back and dragged the woman away from the play area.

Minutes later, the same woman allegedly took an 8-year-old boy before another set of mothers grabbed her and then started beating her.

"And if it was my kid she wouldn't have been walking," Motley said. "She would have probably been at an ambulance somewhere."

The Yuba County Sheriff's Office arrested the suspect, 37-year-old Shanti Kellett, on a kidnapping charge.

People who live in the Yuba Gardens apartments describe it as a place where everyone knows each other.

"Everybody recognizes, like, when cars come in here, that's not normally in here, that car is not normally in here, or this person is not normally in here," O'Shay Turner said.

A stranger allegedly targeted children at the apartment complex and a group of mothers make sure she did not get away.

"Yeah I think they are heroes," Motley said. "If they weren't here then those kids would have probably been gone."

Kellett is being held in the Yuba County jail on $500,000 bail.

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