Waitress Tips Police to Possible Child Molester

Waitress Karen Griggs says one look was all it took for her to know that something was wrong with the two young girls who walked into the Waffle House on Connector 3 in Whitfield County with a 66-year-old man Saturday night.

Police say that hunch got a suspected child molester off the streets.

"Normally I work first shift, but somebody laid out that night so I had to work second," Griggs says.

Griggs believes she was working that shift, and that table for a reason. Her customer Saturday night was Lloyd Sherwood, a 66-year-old man, who had with him two little girls, dressed in mini-skirts and wearing lipstick.

"Whenever I looked into those little girl's eyes, God put it in my heart that something was wrong," Griggs says.

Griggs says, maybe it was because she herself had been molested as a child, but whatever the reason, she decided to talk to the girls, who told her they were from Florida, heading to Michigan on a camping trip. Griggs says she asked the girls if Sherwood was their grandfather, and they would only reply "My daddy's at home."

But it was when the man took one of the girls to the bathroom that Griggs got a feeling she can't explain. "The man went to the bathroom with the smallest child for about fifteen minutes," Griggs says. "It just gave me the creeps."

Griggs went outside and checked out Sherwood's car and didn't see any camping gear. She told her husband she wasn't leaving until she called police.

"I told them that there was an old man and two little girls.. and if it was nothing wrong, I'm sorry, but please go check it out," Griggs recalls.

Police arrived and began questioning Sherwood. At the same time, authorities in Florida contacted the girls' father. The father told police Sherwood was a family friend and had permission to take the girls on a camping trip. However, the father told police that he was under the impression that Sherwood was only taking the girls to a site in South Florida, and knew nothing of plans to go out of state.

Police questioned Sherwood, and according to their affidavit, while he was talking to detectives, he was playing with a camera.
Sherwood allowed police to look at the pictures and the affidavit states what they saw was inappropriate. "Young females running around in nothing but panties... more pictures showed a girl who appeared to be nude with her legs in the air... and others focused on a girl's genitalia."

The father admitted to police that there had been warning signs: one of his daughters had previously told him that Sherwood had taken naked pictures of her in the past. The father told police he saw those pictures, but erased them.

According to the affidavit, detectives uncovered more than just pictures. They say they found evidence that when Sherwood took the girl to the Waffle House bathroom, he touched the little girl and then made the child touch his private parts.

Police say, a suspected child molester is off the streets because Griggs trusted a hunch.

"It feels great. It touches my heart," Griggs says. ""If you have a feeling that something is not right, call the police."