Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - 3-Year-Old Tot-Girl Kidnapped From Home in the Middle of the Night, Cops Follow Trail to MOTEL

Episode Date: August 23, 2022

A 3-year-year-old girl kidnapped from her family's apartment was later found in a nearby hotel with her kidnapper.  Surveillance video captures 50-year-old Holman Hernandez using a cat to lure the little girl to his car. After getting inside, the man and girl sit there for about an hour before Hernandez drives off.  The little girl's parents reported to police that the family went to be around 11 p.m. Saturday, but when they woke up around 5 a.m., the door to their apartment was ajar and the girl was gone.   Hernandez's car was spotted hours later about a mile and a half from the apartment complex.  Officers knocked on the door of the room but didn’t receive an answer, so they forced their way inside, where they found the suspect and the girl.  The victim was transported to a local hospital Joining Nancy Grace Today: Marc Klaas - Founder, KlaasKids Foundation, klaaskids.org, Twitter: @PollyDad, James Shelnutt - 27 years Atlanta Metro Area Major Case Detective, Former S.W.A.T. officer, Attorney (Gadsden, AL), The Shelnutt Law Firm, P.C., ShelnuttLawFirm.com, Twitter: @ShelnuttLawFirm, Dr. Scott A. Johnson, Forensic Psychologist (Minnesota), 32 years specializing in addressing sexual predators, Author: "Physical abusers and Sexual offenders" and When “I Love You” Turns Violent, ForensicConsultation.org Paul Szych - Former Police Commander (Albuquerque, NM), APD Domestic Violence and Stalking Unit, Author: "StopHimFromKillingThem" on Amazon Kindle, StopHimFromKillingThem.com, Twitter: @WorkplaceThreat   Rania Mankarious - CEO, Crime Stoppers of Houston, Author: "The Online World, What You Think You Know and What You Don’t: 4 Critical Tools for Navigating the Digital Age", Crime-Stoppers.org, RaniaMankarious.com, Instagram/Twitter: @TheRaniaReport   Zachery Lashway - Journalist, KPRC 2Houston, Click2Houston.com, Twitter/Instagram: @KPRC2Zach, Facebook: Facebook.com/KPRC2Zach  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. A parent's worst nightmare. In the middle of the night, a stranger enters their home and takes their three-year-old little girl. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. Imagine going to bed at night. You check on your child. Everything's fine. The lights are off. The

night light's on. They've had their bottle. The bank is over them. Everything's okay. And then you find out when you wake up, your child is gone, taken in the middle of the night. It happens and it has just happened. Take a listen to this. Approximately 5.31 a.m. this morning, we had a missing persons call to 12803 North Borough, a missing juvenile. The parents reported that they went to sleep at approximately 11 p.m., 11.30. They said they woke up early this morning. The door was ajar.

Kid was missing. They searched for the kid in an apartment complex. After they couldn't locate him, they called the police. You were hearing the Houston Police Chief, Troy Finner, in a press conference alerting the entire community that this three-year-old little girl missing with me an all-star panel to make sense of what we know right now. But first, before I go to everyone, I want to go to my longtime friend and colleague, Mark Klass. He is the founder of Klass Kids

Foundation, and you can find him at klasskids.org and on Twitter at Polly Dad. Mark Klass, sometimes as much as I want to hear your expertise, world-renowned on missing children, I hate to ask you because I don't want to dredge up when Polly went missing, your daughter. But what's the first, when you hear a scenario like this, that this three-year-old little girl, Lindsay, L-I-N-C-Y, is missing, what goes through your mind immediately, Mark? The very, very first thing that goes through my mind, Nancy, is that that house should have been secured.

There should be no way somebody can get into a home like that from the outside. Secondly, my mind goes right to the numbers that if a child is going to be murdered as a result of one of these incidents, they're going to be 74% of them will be dead within the first three hours. So there's absolutely no time at all to lose. And the third thing that goes through my head is that in these kinds of scenarios, the parents are always the primary suspects until they can retrieve evidence that points in other directions. So it's always in their best interest to fully and completely cooperate with both law enforcement and the media so that things can get straight and they can move the investigation forward. Mark Klass is speaking from experience. His girl, Polly, was taken from the home. And I always use Mark Klass as the gold standard of what parents should do. He was,

take my fingerprints, take anything you want off my body, search He was, take my fingerprints, take anything you want off my body, search my place, search my office, search my car, whatever you want, and then fine my daughter. Don't get hung up on me. And I don't get it, Mark Glass, why all parents don't do that?

I don't know. I think that there's a hesitancy sometimes. I mean, there is so much anti-law enforcement rhetoric out there today in both the media and in the community. And I think people are taking that to heart when the reality is, the harsh reality is, is that every one of those cops has a child. And regardless of what you might have heard about those police officers, they're going to do everything within their power to retrieve your child and get them home. And the same thing goes with the media folks. Everybody wants to help when a child disappears. We are talking about three-year-old Lindsay, who goes missing from her own bed in the middle of the night. The parents wake up as normal the next morning, and the first thing they notice is the door is ajar.

Joining me, journalist KPRC2 Houston, Zachary Lashway. Zachary, thank you so much for being with us. I understand that when they saw the door ajar the way that it was, they immediately knew something was wrong because that was out of the normal. Absolutely, Nancy. Thank you so much for having us. You know, there are still so many questions unanswered. And we ourselves are asking the hard questions. You know, this is a heartbreaking story.

The mother tells police when they went to bed at 11 o'clock Saturday night, their little girl, their three-year-old child was wearing purple pajamas. That was at 11 o'clock. As you mentioned, when they woke up at around 5, 530 Sunday morning, their three-year-old girl was nowhere to be found. They did realize at that point their front door was open. Zachary, what time did the parents wake up on Sunday morning? Around 5, 5.30 is what they tell us, what they told people. So early, early in the mornings. Now that's really interesting to me.

I want to go out to a special guest joining us, Scott A. Johnson, a forensic psychologist joining us out of Minnesota, 32 years and specializing in this area. Author of Physical Abusers and Sex Offenders. And you can find him at ForensicConsultation.org. Scott, thanks for being with us. You know, the early morning hours, for instance, when people are getting up and going to work, say between 5 and 8 a.m. in the morning. Let's make that 5 and 9 a.m. in the morning, let's make that 5 and 9 a.m. in the morning.

Typically, you don't see kidnaps, rapes, murders in those really early work time hours. It's more, I would say, between midnight and 3, midnight, 3.30 that you will see all kind of hell break loose. Would you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, usually that would be the time frame. But the problem we have here is we don't know what time she went missing. I mean, we know at five thirty that she's discovered missing. So it may well have been earlier in that uh morning that uh the abduction took place paul zeit former police commander albuquerque author of stop him from killing them on amazon paul thanks for being with us what do you make of the timing i mean we can narrow it down definitely between 11 30 p.m and 5 30 a.m for sure well right off the bat it's pretty egregious

that um we are not able to definitively lock that down i mean even in my own home i'm the last one to go to bed i know where my kids are i know the doors are locked i know things are secured so in the event that we have somebody that's three years old, that we have a five or six hour window where we don't know where they're at is ridiculous. I've got to agree with you. I mean, Mark Class, the other morning, got up at five as normal and was walking through to start getting everybody's breakfast ready. And I walked past the alarm, one of the alarm stations in the house and noticed it was deactivated. I mean, I got to tell you, Mark, I mean, nothing had happened. The alarm had not gone. It hadn't gone off. There was no problem. I checked the twins before I went up front to the kitchen.

Everything was fine. But just seeing that somehow that alarm was not triggered, put a chill down me. I just didn't understand how that happened. It was my husband's fault, just so you know. But I can't stress enough how important it is to have your windows and doors locked. And if you have an alarm, have it on even when you're home. As a matter of fact, more importantly, when you're home. Hey, you know what? Take my TV.

I'd be mad if you didn't, but don't come in when I'm home with my twins. Don't. Yeah. Under no circumstances should you ever leave your home unsecured. And I think everybody that's on this line now understands that. I mean, we're all in this field in one way or another, but unfortunately there's so much complacency within the community at large. understands that. I mean, we're all in this field in one way or another. But unfortunately, there's so much complacency within the community at large. People still leave their doors unlocked. They somehow think that evil will never touch them or that something will go wrong, that your child will leave of their own volition or that somebody will come in your house and take your child while you're there. We think that these places are sacrosanct,

but they're not. They're just another door somebody can go through and create mayhem. So we have to secure those doors always. What do we know from the Houston police chief? Take a listen to our cut to officers arrived, I guess, a little bit after 531 officers began to canvass the area, talked to a resident. That resident said that he, that they spotted the kid, I'm sorry, the suspect with the kid. Officers began to canvass the immediate area. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. This is what we know. Three-year-old Lindsey with an adult male in the parking lot of the apartment complex. Okay, what a fluke that is. Straight out to James Shelnut, 27 years Metro Major case detective, former SWAT, now lawyer at the Shell Nut Law Firm. James, do you know

how incredible that is for that time of the night under those lighting circumstances for someone to have actually seen the girl leaving? Oh, it's the exception to the general rule. It's very rare. You know, the Houston Police Department did a great job in this case. You know, often we talk about police departments not giving a proper response or or how they should have been more aggressive in trying to locate someone. The Houston Police Department set the gold standard on what a department should do when this situation comes up. To Zachary Lashway joining us, KPRC to Houston. Zachary, I understand there was a pet involved? Yes, a cat. The child's mother tells police that this witness, this neighbor, has video showing the suspect calling out to the child,

luring her into the car first with the cat and then her. Oh, Mark Klaas, it's the oldest trick in the book. It's an example I've even told the twins when they were three and four. Somebody comes along and says, have you seen my puppy? Can you help me find him, get in the car? No. Using a pet as a lure for a child, it's age old and it works. It works every time and that's why it's age old and that's why they continue to do it.

But there are many types of lures out there, Nancy. My good friend Mitzi Sanchez was lured into the kidnapper's car because he said he was feeble and he needed help picking something up. And she was only seven years old they're lured by fame they're lured by money they're lured by pets they're lured by any shiny object it seems like sometimes and that's why people should have that talk with their children as you did as i did um it's got to be part of the the the routine of raising your children to let them be aware and know what's going on around them so that they can avoid these kinds of traps. And another trap to Runya Mankarios, CEO, Crime Stoppers of Houston, author of The Online World, What You Think You Know and What You Don't. Runya, thank you for being with us. Another one is an adult asking for help.

Hey, I'm lost. Could you lead me to the Methodist church up the street? Do you know where that is? Could you just hop in and show me? Or just get the child close enough to the car where they can grab the child and throw them in the back seat. It's really easy to do. I've told the twins a million times, an adult does not need a child's help. Do not, even if it's a woman or even if they say,

hey, I know your mom. No. Nancy, you're right. You're right. But the question we always get is, when do you start having these conversations with your children? So here you have a three-year-old.

You know, it's highly suspect that the parents have sat down and talked about this with a three-year-old because a lot of parents think, well, this child's too young. She or he is always in my sight. We're always running errands together. They're not, you know, wandering to and from school alone. So when do you start having the conversation? I say start as young as they're able to understand, even if you feel like they'll never be in the situation, go through scenarios. You don't have

to scare a child, but you can give them the tools and the assets, that deep understanding of how to react if they ever, God forbid, need to. It's something we encourage parents to do all over the city, all over the state, actually all over the country in conversations we have at Crime Stoppers. To Zachary Lashway, KPRC2 Houston. Zachary, how did a neighbor happen to have video of that, of seeing an adult male taking the three-year-old and getting her into a car with a cat? What was it, a ring doorbell video? Yeah, you know, that question, it's still unclear. We're not sure if it was surveillance video from the apartment complex. The mother just said, there's video that shows still a lot of questions to be answered. This being one. Paul's like way in. So I even take it one step further with my kids. You got to make it black and white. You got to be direct, straight to the point. And I tell them if somebody ever lures you into a car and you leave with them,

nobody, none of your family, no one who loves you will ever see you again. It's that simple. It cannot happen. And I've kept that line throughout their entire lives. Okay, well, I wasn't as harsh when the children were three. I told them that people would try to take them and make them work in orange groves in Florida and pick oranges for free day till night and have nothing but gruel for dinner and that I wouldn't be able to find them. And they said out of all that, they said, what's gruel? OK, so anyway, that's what I told them was going to happen to them if they were picked up by a stranger.

As they got older, I mean, finally there came a point where, you know, Lucy asked me, well, why would they take me? And I said, to hurt you, to hurt you. And I mean, I hated to be graphic with them, but I wanted to scare them enough so they wouldn't get into a car. But a three-year-old, studies have shown, isn't this Tremark class, that you can tell a three-year-old, don't get in the car with a stranger. And then they perform a test after that, and the child gets in the car with a stranger. They've just been told, don't get in the car with a stranger, but they can't process that, Mark. Well, the pedophiles, the abductors are fully aware of that. And as somebody, I think you mentioned, the whole goal is to get the child close enough to the car so they can toss them in and drive away.

So again, you don't want to leave three-year-old children ever unsupervised. There's no question about that. And I also totally believe that you need to have these conversations and that they shouldn't be fear-based conversations. They should be informational conversations so the children at least have some basis from which to, some baseline from which to react and hope that these lessons take hold sooner rather than later. Zachary Lashway with me, KPRC 2 Houston. Zachary, this apartment complex, how close is it to a major thoroughfare? Oh, it's just due west of 45. If your viewers are familiar with the Houston area, this is North Houston, just due west of Bush Intercontinental.

The neighborhood is called Greens Point, a very diverse area. It's a large area just due west of Bush. Okay, that right there. Let me go to you on this. Runya Macario, CEO of Crime Stoppers of Houston. That's enough to put a chill down your spine. Because you remember what Mark Klass said right when we started talking? 74%. 74% of stranger abductions, a child is dead within three hours. They've raped the child. They don't want to witness.

They kill the child to get rid of evidence. And that is the child. And when you think of an interstate that close to the home where this three-year-old Lindsay was kidnapped, think of how fast, every hour, they're 70 miles further away.

Yeah, it's chilling. It's absolutely chilling as a parent and as anyone who cares, you know, in the community. It just, it just, I have goosebumps. According to Zachary Lashway,

KPRC, there is video surveillance of the adult male leading this child to a car with a pet cat as allure. Thank heaven for that neighbor that had that surveillance video, whether it was surveillance video or ring doorbell camera. It shows the car take a listen to brooke taylor ktrk abc 13. it's all captured on surveillance footage from that apartment complex we're not going to share it with you just because the mother had said she didn't want that video out there but i could tell you what I saw and that was that little girl on a man's lap. He then carries a cat into his car. Soon after he carries that little girl into the car and they drive off leading to this frantic search. Oh you know just hearing that I want to go to Scott A. Johnson Forensic Psychologist joining us out of Minnesota and author

he puts the three year old little girl on his lap and that's seen in the video surveillance right, and so what you're likely dealing with here is a psychopathic sexual predator he was certainly not anxious about it, he approached her we don't know if there was previous contact between him and the victim because the victim wasn't struggling. So certainly that might imply he's already groomed her or had some other contact. But he was going to take his time with this particular victim. Take a listen to our friends at KHOU.

The alert came in around 5.30 this morning. Police say the child's parents told them they went to bed around 11 last night at an apartment complex just a few minutes away. When they woke up this morning, she was gone and the door to the apartment was open. Police say they were looking in this area and around 2 p.m. they located the suspect's car. The car was just a few blocks away from the hotel here. All because of that neighbor's surveillance video, they could ID's car. The car was just a few blocks away from the hotel here. All because of that neighbor's surveillance video, they could ID the car. Listen to more from KTRK ABC 13. Video from the apartment complex shows the girl being lured into a car with a cat. ABC 13, the only station

to find this surveillance video that shows that car parked minutes away on Gilman's Park Drive. The suspect in the car with the girl for about an hour before they're seen walking off. Straight back out to our friend joining us in KPRC, Zachary Lashway. How far away from the home is the hotel? 1.5 miles away from that child's apartment. That's where that hotel is. Guys, take a listen to our cut 9, our friends at KTRK. Nearly 10 hours later, and the suspect's car found near a motel on Rankin Road just four minutes away. Management confirming to police that Hernandez rented a room Sunday morning. Our cameras rolling as police crowded outside the motel room. Officers approached the room.

Officers forced entry into the unit. And what happens when police enter the room? Take a listen. Police say that suspect did put up a fight in this motel right behind me. Now, I asked the police chief, Troy Finner, whether the suspect knew the family. He says it's early on right now in the investigation doesn't want to jump to conclusions but says he believes that this was a complete stranger mark class founder class kids foundation that is unusual this is a complete stranger no connection

to the family the the thing people have to understand is that the vast majority of children that are sexually abused are taken by somebody that is very well known to the family, the vast majority of cases. So what you're dealing with in a situation like this is the ultimate needle in the haystack. There's 330 million Americans, one child disappears, and it's got to be one of those people unless it's a foreigner. So the fact that they had ring video camera or ring footage of what went down here is absolutely the biggest break they ever could have expected in this case. And that ultimately is probably what led law enforcement to the perpetrator. Guys, we were earlier talking about could the perp have groomed this little girl yet still be unknown to the parents? Absolutely.

How many times had this little girl maybe played on the apartment complex playground? How many times had she been in the apartment complex laundry room? That's the perfect time for someone like this adult male to talk to the little girl under friendly circumstances with mommy or daddy nearby, which gives him the indicia of being a friend. What about it, Runya Macarios? Absolutely. I'm thinking about what you're saying. There's many different opportunities for him to have noticed her, to have just gentle high smile. Oh, you look nice today, cute. For him to feel familiar to her. So they find the car, they find the hotel room, but what about three-year-old Lindsey? Take a listen to our friends at ABC 13. We're getting our first look now at an updated mugshot of the suspect at the center of yesterday's Amber Alert. We're talking about 50-year-old Holman Hernandez.

Court documents say Hernandez lured the three-year-old girl to his car before he was found hours later at a motel by police. Those same documents say Hernandez was found in bed with the little girl wearing only boxers. She was in a shirt and diaper. Her parents told police they woke up at 5 a.m., noticed their daughter was missing, and the front door opened. Police tracked the pair down at the motel not far from where the child lives. They found Hernandez and the three-year-old girl inside a room in a bed. Okay, nothing good is going to come of that. To Scott Johnson, forensic psychologist, joining us out of Minnesota. The little girl has on nothing but a t-shirt and a diaper. The man has her in bed in a hotel away from her parents

yep likely there was um sexual abuse going on and that uh you know that he was calm enough to still keep the victim there uh implies that there was likely going to be far more sexual contact in the future we don't know whether he was going to keep her for his own sex toy, if you will, for days, weeks, what have you, or sexually continue to sexually molest her if he did, in fact, sexually molest her, etc. Mark Klass, weigh in. Oh, God, Nancy. There's no good ending to a scenario like that under any circumstances. It was just a ticking time bomb until he probably did what you suggested at the very beginning, got rid of her to destroy evidence. Either that or what, keep her around forever? There's no good way this ends if they hadn't had that surveillance video and if Houston PD hadn't been well trained and done exactly what they needed to do

to bring them to that hotel room and save her life. Nancy? Yes, jump in. Absolutely, yes. This was going to end with a homicide, no doubt. And Houston PD were stars in finding this young lady. Yeah. You know what's amazing is that the little girl is alive.

The scenario that Mark Klass just laid out has happened oh so often. Does the name Danielle Van Dam ring a bell? I will never forget it. Danielle Van Dam, a little seven-year-old girl, taken out of her California home by a neighbor, never seen alive again. Take a listen to our friends at CBS 8 San Diego, our cut 16. Former District Attorney Paul Finkst remembers the day the seven-year-old girl's body was discovered off Dehesa Road. I've never in my career seen a case where someone has actually gone into a home, taken a child out of bed, and taken that child

back to his home, sexually abused and taken the child away, killed the child and dumped the body. I remember that the only way that Danielle Van Damme's body could be identified is that she was wearing one of the Mickey Mouse earrings her family had gotten her on a trip to Disneyland. And Danielle Van Damme is certainly not the only child taken from her home. Now, Danielle Van Dam was taken by David Westerfield, who lived a few houses down from the Van Dam family. Both parents were home and did not hear anyone enter. It's believed Westerfield came through a sliding glass door that was unlocked, which is one of the main ways people break into homes is through sliding glass doors. They're very easy to manipulate. David Westerfield kept Danielle alive, molesting her for days in his RV before he was finally apprehended.

That leads me to another little girl, 6-year-old Isabella Solis. Take a listen to this 911 call and our Cut 17. Please call the police department. Get hard. Hello, I need to report a missing child. I believe she was abducted from my house. Okay, how old? She was old. Okay, is it your daughter?

Yes. Why do you think she was abducted? I have no idea. We woke up this morning. I went to go get her up for her baseball game, and she's gone. I woke up my sons. We looked everywhere in the house,

and my oldest son noticed that her window was wide open and the screen was laying in the backyard. And then the end of the story, our forensic KGUN 9 cut 18. Six-year-old Isabel Sellis is discovered missing from her bedroom. Her father, Sergio Sellis, calls 911 Saturday morning reporting her missing. The search went on for days, weeks, then years went by. The family invited Kagan 9 into their home in 2015 to talk about the investigation they feel was botched from the beginning. She should have been found within the first 24 hours instead of wasting three days on us. March 30th, 2017. Investigators reveal they found her remains. In my class, I'm not inferring that the Solis family

withheld DNA or fingerprints because I don't believe that they did. I think they cooperated. But parents have to cooperate fully so cops can move on from them. The Solis family was in no way responsible for their daughter's disappearance. Mark Klass, that tells us how careful parents have to be who is exposed to their child, whether it's at your church, your softball team, your neighbors. You don't know these people the way you think you do.

You don't know anybody the way you think they do. My brain is exploding here a little bit, Nancy, because, you know, Pauly's killer, unknown to the family, walked in through an unsecured back door. And the only reason he was detected was because he calculated incorrectly. He did not realize there were other children in the house with Polly. He thought he would be able to go in and grab her and simply disappear. And if that, in fact, had happened, we never would have been able to resolve this case. There is no crime worse against an individual than a stranger abduction by one of these sexually sadistic psychopaths, by one of these characters that have nothing more on their mind than abusing little girls and then getting rid of the evidence. And it's the cases you mentioned and so many other cases

that we've worked through the years, but it just sends an absolute chill down my spine because we can stop this, yet it continues to happen time and time and time again. I'm thinking of another little girl out of Florida, Haley Cummings. Take a listen to our friends at News 4 Jax. we were sleeping okay all right you said your back door was wide open misty crosland said when she went to bed that night in this bedroom hayley was sleeping right next to her hours of searching turned into days then weeks months passed and now years. There's been no sign of Haley.

And the case that has always broken my heart, the case of Shania, little five-year-old Shania. Take a listen to our cut 20 WRAL. Five-year-old Shania was taken from this trailer park in 2009. Her body found six days later in a kudzu patch. Prosecutors say this man, Mario McNeil, raped and killed her. He's now on death row. Also, in Shania's case, the kidnap, rape her, took this five-year-old little girl, Shania, and it is seen on hotel video into a hotel room. He's actually carrying her in his

arms. He goes on to rape, sodomize, and murder five-year-old Shania. It happens so much more than we think. When parents think they've tucked their child in and they're safely asleep, an intruder enters and ruins their lives. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Back to Lindsay was found in the hotel room with her T-shirt and diaper on in bed with a complete stranger. And as Jackie has pointed out to me, yes, she was found in the hotel room in a T-shirt and a diaper. But she was spotted on that surveillance video leaving in pajamas, so she had been undressed. Now, take a listen to our friends at KHOU. Police said they found Hernandez's car a few blocks from the hotel, and when they searched

the hotel, they forced their way into the room he'd rented and put hernandez in custody the judge speaking today about hernandez's bond decision which again is set at one million dollars the states motion for a million dollar bond i'm ordering you to surrender your passport now we also viewed apartment surveillance video that video appears to show hern Hernandez interacting with the little girl and then loading her and a small animal into his car before taking off. What this three-year-old girl endured in that hotel room, we may never know. She's alive, but she will never be the same again. As for the defendant, take a listen to our friends at KPRC. An immigration hold has been placed on 50-year-old Holman Hernandez.

His bond has been set at $1 million. The girl's family hopes he stays in jail. He's due back in court. You have been charged with a first-degree felony. It's aggravated kidnapping. Holman Hernandez charged with aggravated kidnapping, accused of luring a three year old girl inside his vehicle, abducting her from her family's apartment complex on the north side and taking her to a motel. She was wearing long sleeve purple pajamas at the time.

To Zachary Lashway, our special guest joining us from KPRC2 Houston, he was given a bond. Yes, of $1 million. He's expected to be back in court today. That bond, a judge could increase that amount. But as of right now, it has been set at $1 million. What do we know about this 50-year-old Holman Hernandez? So we still, again, a lot of questions surrounding him. According to court documents, he does have a couple of DUIs from here in Harris County. One interesting point, one thing that we've been talking about through all of this, we've been putting a lot of emphasis on neighbors he it should be mentioned that he only lives approximately 2.4 miles away from where this child was abducted at her apartment complex that's a seven-minute

drive we do know that he brought her to a hotel a motel that is located 1.5 miles away which is approximately a five mile drive. One question that we asked the mother of this child's last name is Hernandez. We asked police if there was any known relation between the suspect and the child. Their answer, of course, at this point in the investigation is no. I've heard from multiple sources. There is no relationship between the parents and the suspect. I do know that the hotel rented the room to this guy. And I'm wondering if he had the little girl with him at the time. What do we know about that, Zachary Lashway if anything we do know that he checked in at approximately 7 30

Sunday morning um other than that we have not been able to get any surveillance video from that hotel motel but we do know uh this is approximately two hours after the parents noticed she was missing early Sunday morning so let understand, they sat in the car for a long period of time before they left? Yeah, that's what that video shows. That's what that video is showing. With a girl on his lap. To Paul Zyke, weigh in. Yeah, I believe it was an hour that the little girl was on his lap,

which really throws know throws up a lot of red flags I mean normally these types of situations rapidly end so the fact that he was hanging out in the car and then went to a motel and kind of nonchalantly went about this you know we got lucky law enforcement the family everybody got lucky on this case that this individual did all those things. If not, this would be a matter of where is she or a recovered body. Scott Johnson, weigh in. Yeah, I mean, I agree with that. I mean, there's a psychopath who's calm, premeditated, not concerned about getting caught, taking his time, doing what he wants to do. So a very dangerous man. Runya Macarius.

Yeah. I want to echo what Scott said. I think from the parent's perspective, they put her to sleep. They woke up a minute later, they called law enforcement. I do want to say, you know, the suspect appeared to be with her in the car. You know, son is coming out. People are getting back out into the world. He escapes with her to a local hotel. I also want to add one other thing. We were talking about what he could possibly doing with this child in the room. I want to throw one other thing out there. We are seeing the exploitation of children online rapidly increase. So did he potentially sexually assault her? You know, without question, that is a huge potential. But he also might have

been taking photos of her or videos of her for other, you know, money-making agendas. And that is something we're seeing more and more. Unfortunately, it is horrific and disgusting, but something we want people to be aware of. James Shelnut. Let's also not overlook the possibility that sometimes young children are sold into the sex trafficking trade. I wouldn't be surprised if this was an option that this gentleman was considering. And like somebody had said previously, this is the exception to the rule. And I hope that whoever was responsible for this little girl at the time that she was taken, that this is a wake-up call for them if they realize they got lucky. A wake-up call too late. Mark Klass, final thought?

Well, of course, it's a wake-up call not only to those parents but to everybody. But I think the good news here, the silver lining, is that it's almost impossible to escape the glare of surveillance cameras anymore. They're absolutely ubiquitous, even on our doors. So I would hope that those individuals who would be even considering doing something like this will keep it in their mind that you can run, but the reality is that it's much, much more difficult to hide now than it's ever been before, and that these kinds of technologies are going to help us solve these cases,

and more and more little children will be brought home. We wait as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace Cromb Story signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.