A manhunt is underway in southeast Queens for a sexual predator who allegedly kidnapped a 9-year-old girl at a Queens Village supermarket while she was grocery shopping with her grandmother on Thursday evening.
The abduction occurred inside the Key Food at 213-22 Jamaica Ave. just after 7:20 p.m., when the grandmother went to the bathroom. The sexual deviant approached the youngster and lured her out of the store and into his vehicle, according to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation.
While the grandmother alerted store employees that her granddaughter had gone missing, the perpetrator led her into a silver four-door Honda Civic sedan and drove away from the location and traveled a short distance.
What happened next has led to calls on social media for street justice to be meted out against the alleged kidnapper who parked the Civic and proceeded to force the young girl to perform a lewd act inside the vehicle, police said.
Following the sexual assault, the suspect drove back to the Queens Village Key Food and let her go before driving off in an unknown direction. The victim was reunited with her grandmother before EMS transported the victim to a local area hospital to be examined. An NYPD spokesman could not say which hospital the victim was taken to.
The NYPD released a surveillance photo of the suspect and is asking for the public’s help in identifying him. He is described as having a dark complexion with a heavy build. He was last seen wearing a pink polo shirt, a blue MTA baseball cap, clear-framed eyeglasses and blue jeans. A reward of up to $3,500 is being offered for information that leads to the alleged predator’s arrest.
At around 10 a.m. on Friday, the NYPD released a surveillance image of the Honda Civic the perpetrator was driving.
Investigators believe the same car was involved in a fatal collision in Queens Village at around 12:30 p.m. on Friday and are working to determine if the driver is the same man wanted in the abduction at the Key Food store less than a mile from the scene of the crash. The driver of the silver Honda Civic was speeding northbound on 90th Avenue when he t-boned a Grand Cherokee at the intersection of 212th Street. EMS responded to the scene and rushed the driver of the Honda Civic to New York-Presbyterian Queens Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The driver of the Grand Cherokee remained at the scene and was not injured. There are no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing.
Anyone with information regarding this kidnapping investigation is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at crimestoppers.nypdonline.org, or on X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) @NYPDTips. All calls and messages are kept confidential.
Through Aug. 25, the 105th Precinct, where the crime occurred, has reported 37 sex crimes so far in 2024, seven more than the 30 reported at the same point last year, an increase of 23.3%, according to the most recent CompStat report.
