A Mexican illegal immigrant, who was previously deported from the United States five times, has been arrested after allegedly attempting to kidnap a teenage Alabama girl in a store parking lot around 5:40 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, according to officials.
Yordy Centeno Melchor, 31, is charged with second-degree attempted kidnapping and he is being held on a $100,000 bond in connection with the incident.
“It seems as if, when he got in the parking lot, he sort of coaxed the girl, who was trying to move a buggy,” Elmore County Sheriff Bill Franklin told Fox News Digital. “And she was in that area or near his vehicle. But he coaxed her into coming over to the vehicle. She’s a young girl. She’s 17 years old.”
Another man nearby apparently saw the girl “in distress” and confronted Melchor, at which point he allegedly fled the scene, and the sheriff’s office issued a be-on-the-lookout (BOLO) alert for the area.
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The sheriff’s office later obtained a search warrant for the suspect’s phone, and in his “notes” section he had detailed “what he was going to do,” Franklin said.
“He was going to give her $200, and I won’t get into the intricacies of that, but he was obviously trying to coax her to get in the car,” the sheriff explained.
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Officials aren’t sure exactly when Melchor wrote the note, but the victim told authorities he showed it to her – possibly as a way to communicate with the girl that he was going to offer her money.
An employee at the store in Holtsville where the incident happened shared video footage from the parking lot with authorities, who were able to find a license plate number for the suspect.
Days later, in a county 30 miles north of Elmore, officials stopped a vehicle matching the one at the crime scene and ran its plates, which matched the suspect vehicle. The driver, Melchor, also matched the suspect’s description.
“We’re going to cooperate with ICE. We’re always going to cooperate with ICE.”
Officials were later able to positively identify the suspect and his prior deportations. They are still working to determine what led Melchor to be deported five separate times.
Following his arrest, a local woman saw Melchor’s mugshot and reported seeing a man with a similar appearance in the girl’s bathroom of a Walmart.
Melchor has ties to San Antonio, Texas, and Shelby County, Alabama. He was known to drive between those two areas visiting family, the sheriff said.
The suspect may face additional charges if authorities can identify any other victims.
Franklin described his officers as a “great group of guys” who “all have the same plight to keep Elmore County safe.” He added that Elmore County is not a particularly large or small county, but officials “just don’t deal with a lot of” crimes of this nature in the area.
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