Man arrested after allegedly following girls into home in Lowell

​​​​​​​LOWELL, Mass. — A man was arrested after allegedly following multiple girls into a house in Lowell, police say.

Lowell Police were called to a house on Court Street around 4:20 p.m., where it appeared as if a man had approached girls that were playing in the front yard.

The suspect, identified as 54-year-old Wayne Spencer, allegedly followed the girls into the house after they became scared and ran inside, and the children's mother then pushed him outside.

Police say Spencer then tried to run, but was held down by the husband and a neighbor until officers arrived.

"All I heard my wife call out, 'Honey, you need to go down the street. Someone just took the kids,' Brian Hackett, who helped restrain Spencer, said. "My first instinct when someone tries to take the kids in this neighborhood, I run outside the house. You don't take the kids, simple as that. These are our kids, you don't touch the kids in this neighborhood."

One of the girls who Spencer followed into the home, 12-year-old Elizabeth Santos, said

"Out of nowhere, my friend Haley pointed out this man that was standing in our yard, and he was just leaning against the tree like he had been watching us for a while,' Santos said. "I looked closely, and I'm just watching him, and all I could see were his cloudy white eyes with his tiny, sharp black pupils just staring at me."

Santos said she screamed at the top of her lungs to run, and told her friend to "run somewhere where he won't get you."

"My other friend ran in the house with me," Santos said. I threw her in front of me, and he charged and tried to grab me by the hair."

Santos' mother Maureen praised her daughter's instincts at that moment.

"My daughter was so courageous," Maureen Santos said. "It was so amazing, I'm proud of her."

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Spencer has no relationship to anyone at the address on Court Street, and is also homeless, police say.

He was charged with breaking and entering, and assault on a person, and is being evaluated at the hospital.

The incident is under investigation.

Cox Media Group