Police say the mother quickly recovered her 1-year-old before store workers removed the suspect and officers arrested him nearby.

TULSA, Okla. — A 50-year-old man was arrested after Tulsa police said he lifted a 1-year-old child from a mother’s shopping cart inside a Walmart, placed the child in another cart and began walking away before the mother confronted him and took the child back.

The Sept. 8 encounter lasted long enough to prompt a kidnapping call but ended with the child back with the mother, according to police accounts reported by several news organizations. Marshall Dixon was arrested on a kidnapping complaint after officers found a man matching the suspect’s description at a bus stop near the store. Police said Dixon acknowledged taking the child when officers asked him about the incident. The available reporting does not identify the mother or children, disclose a motive or describe any injury to the child. Later public reporting reviewed for this story also did not establish a final court disposition in the case.

Police said officers were sent at about 5:08 p.m. to the Walmart near 68th Street and Memorial Drive after a report of a kidnapping. The mother told officers that she had been shopping with two children when a man approached and briefly spoke with her about them. According to that account, the conversation came before the physical act that led to the arrest: the man took the 1-year-old out of the woman’s cart. Police did not describe how long the conversation lasted, what was said beyond the subject of the children or whether the mother and the man had ever met before. The reports describe him as a stranger to her.

The mother told police that the man put the child into his own shopping cart and started to walk away. That detail is central to the police allegation because it distinguishes the episode from a fleeting touch or accidental encounter in a crowded store. The mother reacted immediately, according to authorities. She confronted the man and took the child back. Police have not publicly described a prolonged struggle, a weapon or a demand for money in the reporting reviewed for this article. They also have not said the child was carried out of the store. The reported removal from the mother’s cart and the start of movement away from her occurred inside the Walmart.

After getting the child back, the mother took both children into a store bathroom, locked the door and called for help, police said. That sequence placed the children away from the man while employees were also responding elsewhere in the store. The mother’s name has not been released in the accounts reviewed, and neither child has been publicly identified. Keeping those identities out of the coverage is consistent with the fact that they are private people, including a very young child, whose names are not necessary to understand the allegation. Police have not reported that the mother or children required medical treatment after the incident.

Walmart employees were told what had happened and removed the suspect from the store, according to police. Employees also called 911. The public accounts do not identify the workers or describe whether they had witnessed the initial contact themselves. Their documented role begins after the mother recovered the child: they helped separate the accused man from the store and alerted authorities. The distinction matters because some parts of the public narrative come from the mother’s statement to police, while other portions describe what employees and responding officers did. The original reporting does not provide a full set of witness interviews or an independently released investigative file.

Officers arriving in the area found a man matching the suspect’s description sitting at a nearby bus stop, police said. When officers asked about the reported abduction, police said Dixon replied, “Yeah, I did that.” The short statement has been widely repeated from the department’s account. The publicly available reports do not provide a longer transcript of the exchange, explain whether Dixon gave any additional statement or say whether he was advised of his rights before further questioning. The quotation therefore supports only the narrow point police attributed to it: an acknowledgment made when officers asked about the reported incident. It does not, by itself, supply a motive or resolve every legal element of the accusation.

Dixon was arrested and booked into the Tulsa County Jail on suspicion of kidnapping. Early reporting differed in wording over whether to call the allegation a charge or a complaint, and Law&Crime reported on Sept. 11 that a court case had not yet appeared on the docket it reviewed. The same report said sheriff’s records no longer showed Dixon in custody at that time. Those details should not be read as a dismissal or a finding on the merits. Jail status can change for several reasons, and an arrest record is not the same thing as a filed criminal case, a plea or a conviction. No reliable later source reviewed for this article established a final adjudication.

Oklahoma’s current kidnapping statute provides legal context for the accusation but does not determine whether Dixon committed the offense. Under Title 21, Section 741, a person may be guilty of kidnapping if, without lawful authority, the person seizes, confines, inveigles, decoys, kidnaps, abducts or carries away another person with specified intent, including intent to confine or imprison that person against the person’s will. The statute classifies the offense as a Class B2 felony and allows a prison term of up to 20 years upon conviction. Those are statutory parameters. Prosecutors still would have to prove the required elements beyond a reasonable doubt in any criminal proceeding.

Surveillance imagery released through the police account adds a visual record but only of a slice of the event. One still image published by news organizations appears to show a man with his arms around a small child above a shopping cart in an aisle with household merchandise. The image is consistent with police saying a child was physically lifted from a cart, but a still photograph cannot establish the full sequence before and after that moment. The reporting reviewed here does not include a complete, publicly authenticated surveillance video showing the entire encounter from the first conversation through the mother’s recovery of the child. It also does not establish what, if anything, Dixon said to the mother while the child was being moved.

The case therefore rests in the public record on several distinct pieces of information: the mother’s account to officers, the store’s response, surveillance imagery attributed to the Tulsa Police Department and the statement police say Dixon made when officers located him. Those sources line up on the basic sequence reported across outlets, but important questions remain unanswered. Authorities have not publicly identified a motive, described prior contact between Dixon and the family, or reported evidence that he tried to leave the property with the child. There is also no indication in the reviewed reports that another person participated in the incident. Absence of those details does not negate the allegation; it marks the boundary of what has been publicly verified.

The encounter ended inside the store with the outcome that mattered most immediately: the mother had her 1-year-old back before police arrived, and authorities reported no injury to the child. Employees had removed the accused man from the Walmart, and officers later arrested Dixon nearby. The available reporting does not identify any further danger to the family after that point, leaving the child’s recovery—not the arrest itself—as the final confirmed development from the scene.

Author note: Last updated Oct. 21, 2026.