Raw Video: Teen Taken To Hospital |  Comment | Sarasota Herald-Tribune site

By CHRIS CHMURA, JASON ODRA, MIKE WELLS and KEN KNIGHT

A Manatee County teenager who was found four hours after being abducted from a school bus stop was taken to Manatee Memorial Hospital in Bradenton for examination.

Clay Moore, 13, was tied up and left alone several hours before he was able to escape, Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells said.

He worked himself out of his bindings and walked “a considerable distance” through “a desolate area” when he came across a farm worker on a tractor who gave him a phone to call his mother.

“I think he actually escaped,” Wells said. “That’s our theory at this time. It is based on pretty good evidence. Our mission right now is to locate and apprehend the suspect and to bring him to trial.”

Wells and the boy’s uncle, Greg Moore of Bradenton, spoke with reporters near the bus stop at the intersection of Old Tampa Road and Douglas Hill Place where a man armed with a gun this morning approached approximately 15 students and abducted Clay Moore from the crowd.

“We would like to thank everyone,” Greg Moore said. “In light of the news across the country, it’s just a good outcome to a bad situation.”

Moore characterized his nephew as ingenious and smart.

“If there was a way out, Clay would have found it,” he said.

A massive manhunt by air and ground ended when the 13-year-old was located in the rural Kibler Ranch area, about 20 miles from the bus stop. The boy told authorities he managed to break free from restraints with which he had been bound and escaped into the woods, Wells said. He ran to a farm, where he borrowed a cell phone and called his mother.

Wells declined to go into specifics about the alleged kidnapper’s motives.

“It all seems evil to me, no matter what he was plotting,’’ Wells said.

Wells urged the public to look for an older model red pickup truck the kidnapper was last seen driving and to report any suspicious activities.

“My best guess tells me we are dealing with somebody who is familiar with this area,’’ he said.

The alleged abductor may have tried to go after children in his neighborhood before, according to one witness.

Rabah Jaffal, a 14-year-old seventh grader at Lincoln Middle School who shares a bus stop with Clay Moore, said he’s seen the truck in the neighborhood before and believes it is the same truck that chased his sister a month or two ago.

He said his sister and friends were playing a game when a man drove up in the truck and chased them.

 

This morning, Clay Moore was using a friend’s skateboard at the bus stop, according to Jaffal.

A man pulled up in a red pickup truck and got out. When the truck started to roll the man got back in, put the truck in park and pulled out a gun, Jaffal said.

“Everybody started running,” Jaffal said.

“The man said: ‘Get into the car. Get in the car,’” Jaffal recalled. The younger boy responded by telling the man “I don’t know you” Jaffal said.

Jaffal said Moore then climbed into the back of the pickup cab, leaving the skateboard behind.

Among students at the bus stop, Clay Moore apparently was closest to the truck, Wells said.

The suspect was described as in his 30s, 5-feet 7-inches, with dark skin, short dark hair and a dark, bushy mustache. He was wearing black glasses and blue jeans when last seen.

FBI agents were called to assist with the search for the suspect.
Anyone with information about the abduction was urged to call the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office or 911.

 

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