KNOXVILLE -- Federal officials say they are looking for two men and a woman after the family of an East Tennessee bank employee was briefly kidnapped in an attempted extortion and robbery plot.
Media report the episode began Tuesday morning when an employee of the Y-12 Federal Credit Union in Oak Ridge reported a threat "in an attempt to obtain money from the credit union."
FBI agents and Oak Ridge police placed the credit union on lockdown while the Knox County Sheriff's Office responded to the family's home in Knoxville.
"During the law enforcement response, the suspects fled and no injuries have been reported, and no money was taken from the credit union," a statement from the FBI said.
The FBI said the family was released in a subdivision about four miles from their home.
A woman who said she called 911 for the family told WVLT-TV that she got involved after seeing a car she didn't recognize pull into her driveway.
"So, I thought maybe they were just turning around and then a young man jumped out of the driver's seat and started screaming 'please call 911. We've been abducted'," Tonia Killian said. "And then, there was an older lady that got out of the back seat and she still had duct tape around her arms. She tried to start explaining who she was, who her husband was, and that this was not fake. This was real."
Killian said she was glad she was home to help them.