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Boy, 13, escapes abductor

By BEN MONTGOMERY
Published February 24, 2007

PARRISH - The search ended here, off State Road 64 along a dirt lane that splits a pasture from a tomato field, when 13-year-old Clay Moore wiggled out of his bindings and walked out of the woods.

The boy was disheveled and scared. He saw a man on a tractor. He asked for a cell phone. He called his mother.

Word spread over Manatee County's police scanners. Seventeen miles away, near the bus stop in Parrish where a gunman in a dirty red pickup had snatched Clay 4 1/2 hours earlier, Greg Moore flipped open his cell phone.

"They found him!" the boy's uncle said. "He's safe!"

But the manhunt that included more than 1,200 Manatee sheriff's deputies, helicopters, dogs, the FBI and state agents would go on.

So would the questions.

Who was the man? What were his plans?

Clay had been riding a friend's skateboard on the sidewalk near his neighborhood. It was 8:51 a.m. Four other kids were waiting for the bus at Old Tampa Road when a red pickup pulled up beside them.

"The man just opened the door and said, 'Get in the truck! Get in the truck!' "said Rabah Jaffal, 14, who was waiting with Clay. "Clay was saying, 'I don't know you, sir. I don't know you, sir. What do you want, sir?' Then he pulled out the gun and put it in Clay's face. Clay just got really scared and got in the truck."

And then they were gone. The kids ran to a neighbor's house and called the Sheriff's Office. Deputies responded and soon issued an all-points bulletin and an Amber Alert.

About 1:30 p.m., Clay called his mother. A victim's advocate helped authorities trace the call. He was at Kibler Ranch in eastern Manatee County.

Deputies found Clay a short time later. He was clothed, scared and had minor scrapes.

The man who had abducted him had driven straight from the bus stop to the forest, tied him up and left him there, said Sheriff Charlie Wells. He wouldn't say how the boy was bound or whether he was assaulted.

Late in the day, investigators were still trying to learn the abductor's identity. Wells warned residents to be on the lookout for a dirty red pickup.

Staff writer Michael A. Mohammed and researcher Carolyn Edds contributed to this report. Ben Montgomery can be reached at bmontgomery@sptimes.com or 813 661-2443.

[Last modified February 24, 2007, 01:22:44]