TAMPA, Fla. — A 31-year-old Alabama man who led law enforcement on a multi-state chase after a 4-year-old Lakeland girl went missing, has been charged with kidnapping in federal court.
Hogs was indicted on a charge of kidnapping by a federal grand jury in Tampa on Thursday.
West Wild Hogs is accused of taking Rebecca Lewis from her Lakeland home on the morning of Oct. 8.%
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After sightings in Georgia and Tennessee, Lewis was rescued on Oct. 10 at a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, when she was recognized by a nurse.
“I saw a man holding a little girl’s hand walking toward me. I thought, ‘Man, it looks just like that little girl from that picture,’” Caytlyn Brown said.
Brown told her father, who was in the hospital, what she had seen and he came out and they found Hogs and Rebecca. %
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“As soon as they pass them, my dad looks at me and I said, ‘She is wearing the same outfit (as the one in the picture).' We then went straight to security,” Brown said.
Security officers called police, who found Hogs' car in the hospital parking lot and arrested him.
Rebecca’s grandmother had a message for the accused abductor.
“Don’t bash him, don’t bash him. I don’t know what he was thinking," she said.
Hogs’ family told investigators that he suffers from depression and bipolar disorder.
Hogs previously lived with the Lewis family when Rebecca was an infant. He was asked to leave after threatening the family with a gun, the family said.
Cox Media Group
