Girl escapes kidnapper during car wreck in Hollywood, police say

HOLLYWOOD — A young girl narrowly escaped her kidnapper after the car they were in crashed on Thursday, according to police.

Shane Lee Taylor, 44, of North Carolina, is now charged with two counts of kidnapping a minor under 13 years old and committing a sexual battery, two counts of lewd or lascivious molestation of a victim between 12 and 16, sexual battery on a victim between 12 and 18 by a person 18 years or older, battery, and disobeying or avoiding a red light.

The probable cause affidavit does not provide the girl’s age, but the charges show that she was 12 years old.

The girl told detectives that she had left her home earlier in the day and gone on a walk, ending up at a CVS that looked run down, according to the probable cause affidavit. Detectives later determined that the

CVS was in the 900 block of State Road 7.

While she was outside the CVS about 3 p.m., a bald man approached her, grabbed her by the arm, and forced her into the passenger seat of his car, according to the affidavit. Once inside the car, she told detectives, she knew he was going to hurt her.

He then drove off, telling her he was going to take her to the police station, then looked up the address of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on his phone. But when they got to the building, he drove past it.

In the car, he asked her what type of music she liked. Then he asked her if she was wearing a wire and “frisked her,” touching her chest.

When she told him this was sexual assault, he “scoffed,” she said. As he took her in circles and down alleyways, he put his hand in her shorts and underwear, “stroking” her, and in her shirt, touching her breasts.

As he was doing this, the car crashed, according to the affidavit. The girl fled the car, ran into a Shell gas station, and asked the clerk to call 911. At that point, it was close to 8 p.m.

Later, speaking with detectives, she said she had known he was going to hurt her as soon as he picked her up.

The suspect took everything out of a small backpack the girl was carrying while they were in the car together, she told detectives, including a bottle of perfume and beaded bracelets.

She said that one of the bracelets, with pink beads and stars, might still be in the cup holder of his car.

Taylor told detectives that he works in Florida but lives in North Carolina.

He requested an attorney, according to the affidavit, then told detectives that the girl had told him she had run away from home five times and that police keep putting her back with her parents.

“All I was trying to do was help her,” he said.