American man of NY indicted of kidnapping and raping of a 9-year-old girl

Craig N. Ross Jr. faces 9-count indictment for kidnapping a 9-year-old on Sept. 30 at Moreau State Park.

By Edward Era Barbacena 

Another horrific case of child molestation and abuse committed by a stupid white American adult in the United States.

The white man accused of kidnapping a 9-year-old girl from Moreau Lake State Park two months ago now faces charges that he raped her during the two days before authorities found her at his Milton trailer home, according to an indictment opened Friday morning.

Craig N. Ross Jr. was charged with multiple counts of predatory sexual assault against a child; the indictment accuses him of committing several sexual offenses. The 46-year-old pleaded not guilty during an appearance in Saratoga County Court.

Ross was indicted on nine charges including first-degree kidnapping, the top count, which carries a maximum penalty of 25 years to life in prison.

“We will hold this defendant who committed a heinous, terrible offense to a tender-aged victim accountable and responsible,” District Attorney Karen Heggen said outside court.

Heggen said little about the case. She declined to discuss an ongoing police investigation into whether Ross is linked to the deaths of two teens who were last seen alive in a Milton trailer park in 2003 and 2005, respectively. 

“We will do it well, we will do it completely because of the work done by law enforcement,” she said, praising the work of police.

Ross showed little reaction in court. Wearing street clothes but shackled, he walked hunched over as he was led away from the courtroom. His lawyer, George Conway, left court without speaking to reporters. A receptionist at his office said he would not discuss the case. 

Ross has remained in Saratoga County jail without bail since his arrest two days after the Sept. 30 kidnapping, when police found him and the girl in a camping trailer in the backyard of his mother’s residence in Milton

Over the past six weeks, State Police and other law enforcement agencies have conducted a painstaking investigation to build their case against Ross, including using search warrants to gather mobile phone data on his movements around the time of the kidnapping.

The Milton man was charged by police with kidnapping the child as she rode her bike in the state park during a family camping trip that weekend. Her disappearance set off a massive search in and around the more than 6,000-acre park in which police used K9s, helicopters and a massive task force to scour the woods. But that search turned up no sign of the girl, whose bicycle was found on a campground loop road a short distance from her family’s campsite with its kickstand down. 

Police got a breakthrough in the case just after 4 a.m. Monday, Oct. 2, when they said Ross drove by the girl’s family residence and placed a ransom note asking for $50,000 in their mailbox. The parents were not at home because they had remained at the state campground where their daughter had vanished 34 hours earlier.

A state trooper guarding the house saw the vehicle pull away and did not suspect it was someone connected to the kidnapping. By the time he went to the mailbox and realized what was inside, Ross had slipped away. 

Roughly 10 hours later, after multiple attempts, State Police forensic analysts were able to lift a fingerprint from the ransom note. Police ran it through a database, and it matched Ross’ fingerprints from a 1999 arrest for driving while intoxicated in the city of Saratoga Springs. 

Investigators quickly pinpointed the various properties in Saratoga County tied to Ross and traced him to his mother’s Barrett Road property in Milton.

He was arrested at 6:30 p.m. the same day — four hours after the fingerprint was matched — by members of a SWAT team who stormed the trailer and rescued the girl, who was found stashed in a small storage compartment.

Following his arrest and the girl’s rescue, police spent more than a day searching his mother’s mobile home, the large camper trailer in the backyard where Ross and the girl were found, and his black pickup truck in the driveway. It’s unclear whether any of those searches recovered evidence that may link Ross to other crimes.

Ross initially appeared in Milton Town Court, where he was arraigned on a kidnapping charge. He is scheduled to return Dec. 21 to Saratoga County Court.

Police also have been exploring whether Ross may have any connection to the abduction and murder of two teenagers who vanished in 2003 and 2005 after last being seen near Saratoga County mobile home parks in the town of Milton, where Ross and members of his family have lived for decades.

The remains of 18-year-old Jennifer “Moonbeam” Hammond and 19-year-old Christina N. White were later found a few miles apart in a rugged region of the isolated Lake Desolation State Forest, roughly 10 miles north of where both teens were last seen on summer days in Milton. 

Matthew Robinson, a lead investigator in those cases for the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, said last month they had “no information to indicate that he was or was not involved” in the murders, but that Ross would face scrutiny in those cases as well as other unsolved murders.