Philadelphia authorities said, a 19-year-old daycare worker, Christina Regusters was formally charged
Friday in the abduction, rape, conspiracy, aggravated assault and other offenses against a 5-year-old girl from her Philadelphia
elementary school (Bryant Elementary) last month, an arrest aided by the little girl’s
memory of a talking bird in the home where she was taken.
Heavy.com reports that,
Her bail is set at $4 million, District Attorney Seth Williams said
in a statement. She was one of four people questioned Thursday who live
in a home several blocks from Bryant Elementary School in west
Philadelphia. The other three were released.
Regusters worked at an after-school care program attended by the
victim, who was taken out of her classroom Jan. 14 by a woman posing as
her mother, according to Philadelphia police Capt. John Darby, who heads
the department’s special victims unit. The woman had said she was
coming to take the girl out to breakfast, according to school officials,
who said school policies were not followed in releasing the child.
Investigators believe the suspect and victim then walked a few blocks
to a home where a man was waiting. The child was blindfolded, told to
remove her clothes and put on a black, adult-sized T-shirt, and ordered
to hide under a bed, authorities said. She was apparently dumped about
18 hours later at a park about a mile from her school, just outside the
city, and was found by a passer-by, shivering under playground
equipment. When she was found, the girl told her rescuer, “I’ve been
stolen.”
Police have since taken her to places around the neighborhood as they search for clues.
“The investigation is very much active and ongoing,” Darby said at a news conference Thursday.
Attorney Tom Kline, who represents the girl and her mother, said
“This brave, innocent precious little girl was instrumental in
leading police literally to the door of the crime,” Kline said in an
interview Friday. “She told them that there was a bird in the house. The
bird became one of the many focal points of the investigation.”
Darby said a multicolor macaw was taken from the property during the execution of a police search warrant Thursday night.
A telephone listing for Regusters could not be located. An attorney
who was representing her could not immediately be reached by The
Associated Press because a telephone listing for him was temporarily
disconnected. But the attorney, W. Fred Harrison Jr., told WCAU-TV that
Regusters had “no involvement” in the crime.
The investigation has been unfolding since a woman wearing a black
Muslim garment, her face covered by a veil, posed as the girl’s mother
and took her out of class, officials said. The victim’s mother wears the
traditional chador and niqab.
Kline said the girl suffered “terrible, horrible injuries” and that
the family was “grateful” for the arrest, but knows it isn’t the end of
the line.
“There is still more work to be done,” he said adding that there were
clearly additional people involved. “We are watching anxiously the next
developments because this is not the end of the line.”
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