Kidnapper of 9-Year-Old Girl Dies in Crash While Fleeing Police

A man from Queens who abducted a 9-year-old girl from a New York City supermarket and sexually assaulted her met his end the next day when he crashed into another vehicle while trying to escape from the police.

The suspect, identified by authorities as 64-year-old Wayne Noel, died from injuries sustained in the collision.

The incident began on Thursday evening around 7 p.m when the child, accompanied by her grandmother, was at a Key Food supermarket on Jamaica Avenue.

According to NYPD Assistant Chief of Detectives Jason Savino, the grandmother, who is a familiar figure in the neighborhood, briefly left the girl unattended to use the restroom.

It was during this brief moment that Noel approached the young girl, allegedly demanding that she move in front of him before forcibly grabbing her by the hair and leading her out of the store.

Noel then pushed the girl into his vehicle, drove a short distance, and sexually assaulted her. However, a passerby tried to stop him, but he managed to overpower the good samaritan and fled with his car with the girl still inside.

The sexual assault didn’t end there. Noel, then parked his car near the Key Food store, the same vicinity he abducted the victim from, and sexually assaulted her again, police said. Afterward, Noel left the girl on the street and took off. It wasn’t clear how long the girl was gone, but emergency personnel took the girl to the hospital.

The following afternoon, police spotted Noel’s vehicle near 212th Street and Hillside Avenue. As officers attempted to stop him, Noel attempted to escape but ended in a fatal crash after he ran a stop sign and collided with another vehicle.

He was pronounced dead at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Initially, when the police issued an alert about the kidnapping, they did not know Noel’s identity. However, by the next day, individuals who recognized him from surveillance footage at the supermarket came forward, allowing authorities to confirm his identity.

TOP STORIES:

• Dad hunted down a man accused of molesting his 4-year-old son ‘100 times’
• Mom burns teen daughter’s rapist alive after he taunts her about the attack while out of prison
• Child molester and disgraced Olympic gymnastics doctor ‘targeted’ and in ‘danger every day’ in prison

Noel had a troubling criminal record, including a 2022 incident where he forced a woman into his car at knifepoint during a robbery. Although the woman managed to escape, the incident highlighted a dangerous pattern of behavior that culminated in this latest event.