Who is Amber Bonal? Mom of Alyssa Bonal, 11, who fought off 'kidnapper' Jared Stanga calls daughter a 'miracle'
Mother of Alyssa Bonal, 11, who bravely fought off her suspected kidnapper Jared Paul Stanga on Tuesday, May 18, called her child a miracle. Amber Bonal says her daughter did everything right when a man with a knife approached her as she waited for the school bus at Escambia County, Flordia.
The man in question is believed by the investigators to be 30-year-old Jared Paul Stanga, who has been arrested and charged with the attempted kidnapping of a child under 13, aggravated assault, and battery. He is being held on a more than $1.5 million bond and has a criminal history of child crimes. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement on their Facebook page that the girl escaped the kidnapper’s grasp by fighting him and then breaking free “from the suspect’s grip."
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'It's not her fault or my fault it's his fault'
The mother of the little girl said that normally she does not let Alyssa out of her sight but she was just a few minutes late in getting out of the house. "It's creating guilt for not going out there but I can't let this tear me up. It's not her fault or my fault it's his fault," Amber told MyNBC15. She also praised her brave daughter, who was able to fight off her kidnapper and run to the nearest adult for help. "To go through that, and to make it through, and to fight like that she's just something else. She's a miracle," Amber added.
She also wanted parents to be extra careful about keeping an eye on their children and let what happened to her be a lesson. “I want parents to be extra aware,” Amber told WKRG. “Even parents that watch their kids 24/7. The one time you don’t... that was the one time that I was running late. I had to change the baby’s diaper." In an emotional message, she added, "Be aware. Tell them an extra time you love them. Tell them how special they are every time they go to school, no matter what, anytime, because you don’t know. You just don’t know."
How was Jared Paul Stanga caught?
On May 18, the Sheriff’s Department shared the video of the attempted kidnapping on their Facebook page with the message, “Video from May 18th, attempted kidnapping. Around 7:00 this morning, a white Dodge Journey pulled up to an 11-year-old girl waiting at a bus stop on Old Corry Field Road and Perdido Street. As you could see in this video. A …male exits the vehicle reportedly armed with a knife.” Although originally described as Hispanic, the suspect is a White male, the Pensacola News Journal reported.
Authorities “inundated the area with law enforcement after getting that call" about Alyssa's kidnapping, Sheriff Chip W Simmons said in a news conference. They went house-to-house searching for witnesses. They were able to identify the suspect's vehicle and tag number, which led them to a location where they thought he was and they were able to find the van and the suspect at his home address. “That van had been freshly painted,” Simmons said, revealing that a silver bumper had been painted with fresh black paint.
“He was wearing the same clothes that the suspect was wearing during this attempted abduction. We obtained various pictures of this suspect in convenience stores," he said, adding that the same blue slime that Alyssa was playing with at the time of her kidnapping was found all over the suspect's hands. “He got caught blue-handed,” Amber said.
The judge has set come conditions for Stanga if he posts bail. He is prohibited from having any contact with Alyssa or her family and must also stay away from the scene of the alleged crime. He also cannot have any unsupervised contact with a minor. Stanga's next court date is set for June 10.