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Man Carrying Condoms Allegedly Tried To Abduct 6-Year-Old Boy, But Was Foiled By Victim’s 11-Year-Old Sister
"My heart dropped because I know that I saved my brother. He would not be here right now," Julianne Moore said after the incident, which led to the arrest of Pedro Luyando.
An Ohio girl is being credited as a hero after saving her 6-year-old brother from a possible abduction by a man later found to have several condoms in his pocket.
Eleven-year-old Julianne Moore and had been playing outside with her brother Hayden on Thursday night when she said the pair was approached by a strange man.
"He started to talk to us, but we really couldn't figure out what he was saying. It was like gibberish so we really didn't think much of it," Julianne would later tell local station WJW.
The man, later identified as Pedro Luyando, 33, began to walk away, but then turned back, grabbed her younger brother by the hand and started to pull him away.
“This was not like any handshake or anything,” she said. “I just grabbed my brother and went into the backyard because there was no time to panic. You just have to go with it.”
Julianne said she carried her brother into the backyard where she found her father and screamed that a man had tried to abduct Hayden.
Her father, Joshua Moore, immediately chased after the man and confronted him about five houses down from their Old Brooklyn home.
“I said, ‘Hey did you touch my kids?’ He just threw up his arms at me and just continued walking,” Joshua Moore would later tell WEWS-TV. “My daughter and I gave a full description to police, and just 10 minutes later they had him in custody. They did a great job.”
Luyando was arrested and charged with abduction. Police would later find two unused condoms in his front pocket, according to police reports obtained by Cleveland.com.
Julianne doesn’t see herself as a hero, but believes if she hadn’t been present, her young brother would have been abducted.
"My heart dropped because I know that I saved my brother. He would not be here right now," she said.
Her quick instincts and calm demeanor under pressure were the result of lessons from her parents, who urged her to always look out for her brother.
Her father called the 11-year-old his hero.
“She saved my son,” he said. “I told everyone, I truly believe my son wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for her.”
Luyando is currently being held at the Cuyahoga County Jail.
