Who is Aliex Santiesteban? Miami man charged for abducting and sexually assaulting boy, 12, before shooting him
MIAMI, FLORIDA: A man was arrested on Tuesday, March 30 after being accused of abducting, sexually assaulting and shooting a 12-year-old boy who had snuck out of his home to walk to a friend's house in South Florida.
The police said they arrested Aliex Santiesteban, 43, early on Tuesday. He was charged with sexual battery with a deadly weapon, kidnapping a child under 13 and attempted murder. Major Brian Rafky of the Miami-Dade police’s Special Victims Bureau said detectives were able to track down the suspect through "good old-fashioned police work and DNA evidence."
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A passerby saw the boy walking along a Miami street at around 3 am on Saturday, March 27, and alerted authorities. The boy later told police he had heard a loud bang and was pushed out of a car. He had been shot in the jaw and was temporarily blinded. "He had lost his sight and he was using his touch trying to find his way around to seek help," Miami-Dade Detective Alvaro Zabaleta told news outlets.
The child is recovering at Jackson Memorial Hospital, police said. The good Samaritan, whom television stations did not identify by his full name, was recorded on surveillance video escorting the crying boy into a food mart to get help. "He was screaming, ‘Help, someone, help me, please.’ So I (brought) him to the store where they could call the police," the man told television stations.
Investigators said the boy had placed pillows in his bed to trick his parents into thinking he was sleeping before leaving the house on Friday, March 26 night. He said he was walking to his friend's house about 2 miles away.
While coming back home, he was forced into a car, police said. The boy told investigators he tried to get out, but the car's child locks were engaged. An arrest report states that Santiesteban pulled his car onto a roadside in the Brownsville neighborhood near Miami.
He then forced the child to sit in the backseat, where he assaulted him. Police said a brief struggle ensued and Santiesteban shot the boy. Santiesteban denied the accusations, police said.
At the news conference on March 30, Alfredo Ramirez, the director of the Miami-Dade Police department, thanked the man who helped the boy and the community for stepping in to help.
"As a father of a 12-year-old myself, this is extremely disturbing and hits you at the soul," Ramirez said. "This child has suffered physical and emotional trauma that will take years to overcome."