Local

Deputies: Man tried to abduct teen girl, 2 women in Orange County

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A judge denied an Orlando man bail Thursday morning after he was arrested on charges of trying to abduct two women and a teenage girl.

Authorities said between 9 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, Carlos Caban tried to kidnap a woman in the Deerwood mobile home park, confronted a 14-year-old girl near State Road 50 and County Road 419, and then grabbed a woman's buttocks in the Lake Picket Manor subdivision.

Deputies said it didn't take them long to catch Caban because the three victims were able to describe him to them, along with his license plate number.

WFTV spoke with the last woman who was approached by Caban, Michelle Copela. She said his image is burned in her mind.

"He didn't expect that I would turn around swinging," Copela said.

Copela was walking home from the store at around 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday when she said a man in a white, beat up pickup truck started following her.

"I see this white pickup truck coming this way towards me and I just felt my bottom being squeezed very hard," Copela said.

Copela said she fought back, breaking his grip with a punch to his arm, but not before she got a good look.

"You're not going to touch me and get away with it. I've got an 8-year-old and I'm all he's got," Copela said. "He covered his face after he attacked me, so I just turned around, click, click, click, memory, just get the license plate. It's burned in memory; his face is burned in my memory."

In another attempted abduction by 24-year-old Caban, deputies said a homeless man saved a 14-year-old girl who was on her way to school.

Copela's description matched the other two victims and deputies said that led them to Caban. WFTV was there when Caban was taken to jail.

"Why did you attack three women?" WFTV reporter Renee Stoll asked.

"They got the wrong person," Caban replied.

Investigators said Caban man was still driving around the neighborhood when they pulled him over.

"You sick person. How could you do this to a woman you don't even know? You don't know me, you don't know what I'm capable of," said Copela.

WFTV was contacted by another teen girl, Makayla Rouse, who said she watched the news story and realized the man who followed her last week was Caban.

"My heart sank. I thought, 'Oh my God, that's the guy who has been following me,'" said Rouse.

Rouse, 15, said she believes Caban was the man who tried to lure her into a white pickup truck, which was the same vehicle deputies arrested Caban in.

"He was like, 'Do you need a ride?' And I was like, 'No.' And I started walking and he parked his car and he kept watching me," said Rouse.

Rouse said Caban followed her near her school two days in a row last week, and now plans to tell her story to deputies.

"What if he would have taken me? What if I wouldn't have seen my family again?" Rouse said.

WFTV found out that Caban was released from prison in August after serving four years for armed robbery.