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It is every parent’s worst nightmare- what do I do if my child suddenly disappears? That’s what happened to the parents of nine-year-old Charlotte Sena, who was abducted from an upstate New York state park as she rode her bike last week. Thankfully, Charlotte was found alive and reunited with her family, while her kidnapper was caught. But long-time criminal expert Nancy Grace says the ordeal is not completely over. The host of the podcast “Crime Stories with Nancy Grace” appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to explain her worst fear about this case.
“So often I’ve seen the child- who the perp considers just to be evidence- killed, killed to get rid of the evidence, the body discarded,” Grace explained to Berman and Riedel. “Right now, this guy, Craig Ross Jr., is only charged with kidnapping. In New York that’s 15 to life, so settle in, Ross Jr. But I do know forensics investigators specially trained to work with children are gonna interview her again, and the word is there may be additional charges. I’m hoping and praying that he did not rape this little girl.”
Ross was caught after state troopers matched a fingerprint on a ransom note he left in the Senas’ mailbox to a DWI case from 1999. Grace says the level of familiarity Ross had with Charlotte, who lived about two miles away from him, adds a creepy layer to the case. “So, there he is, with a place in the neighborhood. How many times has he watched this little girl go up and down the street on her bike… think about it; the likelihood that the one loop she makes alone, without her little friends- in fifteen minutes she’s gone. Yeah, he was watching her like a jackal, like a jackal waiting for the moment to move in.”
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