Kidnapped Boy Escaped with a Safety Pin, a Stick, and His Teeth

By Rich Silverman

Police in Florida have issued an arrest warrant for a man suspected of kidnapping a thirteen-year-old boy while he was waiting for the school bus. Manatee County Sheriff Charlie Wells said the suspect, Vicente, Ignacio Beltran-Moreno, 22, kidnapped Clay Moore to collect a ransom. But the kidnapper didn’t know that his victim would be resourceful enough to get away before he could collect.

Beltran-Moreno allegedly picked Moore out of a group of children waiting to catch a school bus in the town of Parrish, about 30 miles southeast of St. Petersburg on the morning of Friday, February 23rd. He is alleged to have forced the boy into his red Ford Ranger pickup truck at gunpoint.

According to Rabah Jaffal, 14, who was another of the students waiting for the bus, Clay and four other children were waiting at the bus stop when Beltran-Moreno drove up. "The man just opened the door and said, ‘Get in the truck! Get in the truck!"' said Jaffal. When Moore wouldn’t get in the truck, the suspect pulled out a gun and pointed it at him.

According to authorities, Beltran-Moreno then drove Moore to a deserted farm about 20 miles away where he had worked three years earlier, bound him to a tree with duct tape, gagged him with a sock, and left him alone. Moore’s stepfather, Steve Kelle, told reporters in detail how Moore was able to escape with the help of a safety pin that had been holding together a rip in his jacket. While his abductor was driving away from the bus stop, Moore unclasped the pin and held it in his hand.

As Beltran-Moreno was leading Moore into the woods, the boy secretly slipped the safety pin into his mouth. Kelle said that when his parents asked him later why he did that, Moore said he "just thought it would be helpful." After he was sure his abductor had left, Moore spit out the sock he had been gagged with, and along with it the safety pin. With his hands still bound in front of him, Moore knelt on the ground and used a stick and his mouth to get the pin back.

"He used the safety pin to free himself by picking at [the duct tape] and more or less untying what was binding him," Kelle said. "And then he used that and his mouth once he was free to pull the duct tape off." According to Sheriff Wells, Moore then walked a "considerable distance" until he found a farm worker with a cell phone and called his mother for help.

Moore gave police a description of his kidnapper and the pickup truck that was good enough to lead them to Beltran-Moreno’s home in Bradenton, where police found the pickup truck used in the kidnapping and a ransom note. They would not release additional details about the ransom note.

Police described Beltran-Moreno as 5’5" tall, 140 pounds, with dark eyes and short brown hair. He goes by the nickname "Nacho." Authorities believe Beltran-Moreno has left Florida but would not say where they thought he might be. Beltran-Moreno worked as a contract picker at a farm near where he took Moore, according to Wells, so he knew the back roads in the area.

"We've just got the arrest warrant, we've got the evidence, but we want him," Wells said. Adding that he feels they have a "sporting chance to bring him back to Manatee County and have him stand trial for this crime."

The suspect once worked as a "contract picker" on a farm near the wooded area where Clay was bound to a tree for several hours before his escape, Wells said, and works in Manatee County as an aluminum contractor building screen enclosures, the sheriff said.

"The man kidnapped the wrong kid," said Wells. "This is an observant kid. He’s courageous." He drove the point home to reporters by offering a challenge. "Take a little duct tape, tie it around your arms, see how easy you can get out of it. It’s not easy, even with a safety pin."