It was a wild early Saturday for a Mount Vernon cab driver, who hauled a man all the way to Chatham County just to find the man had no money for fare.
    The man talked the cab driver into taking him to Bulloch County, where he promised he would get the cash, said Bulloch County Sheriff’s Capt. Todd Hutchens. But somewhere along the way, the man made a call and claimed to have been kidnapped and was being held for ransom.
    That’s why Bulloch County Sheriff’s deputies got involved, Hutchens said. Deputies responded Saturday morning to a lookout and stopped the cab at a convenience store near Interstate 16 at the intersection of Ga. highways 46 and 67, he said.
    Statesboro Herald correspondent Roger Allen witnessed the stop, and said there were “eight patrol cars” at the station.
    Chatham County police were also involved in the traffic stop, Hutchens said, adding that the response to the call may have been more than usual due to the reported kidnapping.
    But when deputies learned that there had been no kidnapping, they turned everything over to Chatham County and Mount Vernon law enforcement, he said.
    Instead of a kidnapping, the incident was only a cab driver getting stiffed for the fare and a man with a wild story spawned from what was apparently an overactive imagination.
    Tuesday, persons answering calls to the Mount Vernon Police Department did not have access to a report concerning the incident. The police chief did not return phone calls Tuesday.
    Hutchens said the man was not identified by Bulloch County deputies due to the fact that the case was turned over to the other law enforcement agencies.