A convicted sex offender is facing more charges after being found with a missing child inside his truck in Florida.
The convicted sex offender was identified as 60-year-old Darnell Hairston, who the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) said Friday is facing updated charges of kidnapping a child under 13 years of age, aggravated child abuse, battery by strangulation, and robbery with a deadly weapon, First Coast News reported Saturday.
A citizen alerted FCSO about “suspicious activity” and that call resulted in deputies performing a traffic stop near Whiteview Parkway where they found Hairston, the missing 11-year-old boy, and a 15-year-old identified as Junior Bishop, on New Year’s Eve.
When deputies made contact with the child, he said he had been kidnapped and was afraid he was going to be killed. Deputies placed him inside a patrol car, then approached Hairston, who ran from the scene.
Video footage shows the moment he made it around the front of the white truck and tripped, falling into the roadway. Deputies descended upon him as traffic continued moving in the lane beside them.
Meanwhile, Bishop is accused of jumping into the truck and speeding off down the road, nearly running over the deputies working to secure Hairston.
Deputies pursued the teenager, and a patrol car was seen trying to slow the white truck. However, the truck eventually slammed into the patrol car, causing both to crash on the side of the road:
Another deputy also crashed, hitting a business in the process. Two deputies suffered minor injuries as a result, according to the sheriff’s office.
In a press release on Friday, FCSO said the child had been reported missing three days prior and he was taken for treatment to a local hospital, where investigators interviewed him:
During the interview, the child stated he had been lured to a wooded campsite in Flagler Estates where Hairston choked him until he lost consciousness. After regaining consciousness, the child told detectives he was threatened with a knife and a firearm, tied up with shoelaces and an extension cord, and had duct tape placed over his mouth. The child also told detectives that Hairston held him at the campsite for multiple days and made him travel on the floorboard of his truck covered by a blanket.
…
Detectives from both FCSO and SJSO [St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office] conducted extensive interviews with Hairston. During the interview, detectives determined that Hairston knew the child was missing and endangered, but he could not explain any reason for keeping the child from his parents when he knew that law enforcement was actively searching for him.
Bishop was arrested on multiple charges after fleeing the traffic stop, and the FCSO named him a possible co-conspirator in the kidnapping case.
According to WESH, Hairston was known in the Flagler Estates area and officials said they believe the younger child knew the 15-year-old and said something to him in a group chat about a sexual assault allegedly involving the adult suspect:
The sheriff’s office said the sex offender had been serving a 12-year sentence for three counts of false imprisonment and has a long criminal history, Click Orlando reported on Friday.
“This was a very suspicious incident that is still under investigation by our detectives, but I am thankful that nobody was seriously hurt and that we were able to recover a missing child from this pervert’s grasp,” Sheriff Rick Staly said in comments after the rescue and arrests. “I also do not understand why a pervert who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2004 was released after only five years in 2009. Clearly, he has not learned anything!”
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.