MACON, Ga. — A woman who lives in the Vineville area in Macon says she witnessed men hop out of a car and chase a female jogger in front of her house.
Wednesday, the Bibb County Sheriff's Office called that an unfounded rumor.
Now, they say they're taking it seriously and the case may be connected to a nearby robbery.
"I said, 'What are you doing?' and he said, 'A girl is being chased outside. I got to go help her.' That's when I ran to the window and saw the jogger being followed by two males,” Laney Houston said as she recalled a conversation with her husband.
Houston turned her conversation with her husband and what she witnessed into a Facebook post.
The details included 4 masked men in a white Toyota. Hundreds of people shared her post.
She says she saw the men circle the block before leaving.
"30 minutes later, we hear a group matching the description and a car matching the description with the same tag number just attempted to rob a young girl outside of Jim Shaw's with a gun," she said.
She says she called the Bibb County Sheriff's Office just after 6 p.m. Colonel Henderson Carswell with the sheriff's office says deputies were out on other calls, including the call at Jim Shaw's seafood restaurant.
"The information that was given out about the vehicle and the suspects were kind of very similar, so he made the correct decision that this is probably going to be involving the same people based on what he heard," the colonel said.
The sheriff’s office released a statement the next day describing Houston's report as an unfounded rumor. They asked people not to use social media to incite fear and panic. Houston met with Sheriff David Davis Wednesday and she says he backtracked on that statement.
“He admitted that there was a disconnect there that shouldn't have happened, but at the end of the day, it’s an ongoing investigation, so he really didn't give us many details about the case, but at the same time, everything we told them is helping them try to find the males that attempted to rob that young girl," Houston said.
The sheriff’s office also says the descriptions of the men in both incidents and the Toyota cars are similar.
The Bibb County Sheriff's Office is asking if anyone saw anything connected to the case to call Macon Regional CrimeStoppers.