Police reveal disturbing details after minor found in sex offender's truck

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Florida Authorities release disturbing new details kidnapping and allegedly abused an 11-year-old boy who was reported missing and later found alive with the boy registered sex offender.

Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staley explain The boy has been missing for at least three days in St. Johns County on Friday. According to investigators, the child was abducted by Darnell Hairston, a 60-year-old sex offender from Hastings.

The boy told deputies Hairston lured him to a wooded campground on Flagler Estates, where he was held “for multiple days.”

The child said Hairston choked him until he lost consciousness. When he woke up, the boy said Hairston threatened him with a knife, tied him up with shoelaces and extension cords and taped his mouth shut, Staley said. Detectives searched Hairston’s truck, home and campground and found duct tape, weapons and surveillance equipment matching the child’s description.

Sheriff Staley said investigators believe the kidnapping may be related to another alleged sex crime involving Hairston and another minor in St. Johns County, and that the 11-year-old may have known about or even witnessed the sex crime.

Darnell Hairston, 60, of Hastings, Florida, faces six charges, including kidnapping, child abuse, strangulation, robbery and assault on a police officer after he was pulled over with two minors in his truck (Flagler County Sheriff’s Office)

The child was afraid of Hairston and believed he would be killed, the sheriff said. The boy told deputies that Hairston was forced to hide under a blanket on the floor of the truck when he went anywhere.

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On New Year’s Eve, authorities intercepted Hailsham’s Ford F-150 and found the teen and a 15-year-old boy.

Officers placed the 11-year-old in a patrol car while Hairston trying to escape on foot, but officers quickly restrained him. Hairston is accused of trying to grab an officer’s gun during the fight.

Meanwhile, the 15-year-old got back into Hairston’s truck and drove away, nearly hitting the foot of an officer who was pinning Hairston to the ground, Staley said.

The teen rammed the truck into an officer’s vehicle, running off the road and flipping the truck, but the officer was unharmed.

Investigators believe Hairston may have kidnapped the 11-year-old boy because the boy may have known about or witnessed another sex crime charge against a minor in Hairston (Flagler County Sheriff’s Office)

Authorities say a 15-year-old boy who was with Hairston may have been an accomplice in the kidnapping of the 11-year-old. He faces a grand theft charge for taking Hairston’s truck and has previously been charged with fleeing, assaulting an officer, reckless driving, driving without a license and resisting an officer.

Hairston now faces four additional charges — kidnapping, aggravated child abuse, battery by strangulation and robbery with a deadly weapon — in addition to resisting an officer with violence and attempting to take a firearms charge from a law enforcement officer from a traffic stop.

Hairston is being held in jail without bail.

The case remains under investigation.