Cross gets 3 years for Christmas kidnapping

An Elyria man pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years in prison April 30 on charges he kidnapped a woman and her toddler son on Christmas 2016.

Roderick B. Cross Jr., 26, was scheduled to stand trial on two separate cases before Lorain County Common Pleas Judge D. Chris Cook, but instead took a plea deal.

Cross pleaded guilty to three counts of kidnapping, two counts of weapons under disability and single counts of improper handling a firearm in a motor vehicle and domestic violence.

He will begin serving the sentence at the conclusion of his current 12-month prison term on charges of failure to comply, obstructing official business and willful or wanton disregard of safety on a highway, for which he was sentenced Feb. 13.

At the time, Elyria police Capt. Christopher Costantino said officers located the 22-year-old victim and her 2-year-old son in the 200 block of Bath Street just before 10 p.m. Dec. 25, 2016.

Costantino said Cross threatened to shoot the woman, ordered her into his Jeep Cherokee and sped off as she attempted to get out, all while she was holding her son.

When the woman successfully jumped from the moving vehicle with her son in her arms, Cross punched her in the face and pulled her hair until she got back in the vehicle. Costantino said Cross also brandished a handgun and threatened to kill the woman if she didn’t re-enter the Cherokee. At one point, the suspect fired a round into the back seat.

Cross