According to his ex-girlfriend, the man suspected of abducting a 9-year-old from a park in upstate New York and keeping her for ransom was allegedly wanting her late grandfather’s inheritance.
The young girl, Charlotte Sena, was discovered in a closet inside Craig Ross Jr.’s, 46, trailer after going missing on a bike ride while camping with her family. The man was charged earlier this week with kidnapping.
Patrick Sena, Charlotte’s grandfather, won a $2.2 million settlement after successfully suing the small New York town of Greenfield over a sledding accident in 1998. He died in 2015.
33-year-old Amanda Preece, Ross’ ex-girlfriend, said that she thinks Ross requested $50,000 from the Senas because he was aware of the settlement money because it was widely known among locals in the Saratoga region.
“I think that’s why he held her ransom, he was hoping to get some of the money because he’s struggling financially,” she said. “That kind of money would set him up for around four or five years.”
He’s never wanted to work. He’s always wanted to find people to mooch off of whether it be girlfriends or making his mother feel bad because his MS is so bad,” she added, alluding to his multiple sclerosis.
Ross was described as “evil” by Amanda, who thinks he stalked Charlotte and her family while long-distance planning the kidnapping (
Image: Facebook)
Ross was apparently compelled to return to his mother’s property where he had been living in the trailer after falling behind on tax payments for a property less than two miles from Charlotte’s house.
Ross was described as “evil” by Amanda, who thinks he stalked Charlotte and her family while long-distance planning the kidnapping. “He had been following her family, he knew where they lived,” she said. He put up tarp over the windows a few months prior, so I feel like he had been planning it for a while.”
“He has the patience for messed up things like that. To go to the campsite where they were at, to know where they lived, and to go to the park when they are there. He definitely had this planned,” she said
According to court documents acquired by the Daily Mail, Amanda was given a restraining order against Ross in 2017 after he “grabbed her by the throat with both hands” and hurled her across a room. She stated that when they were together, he “terrorized” her.
According to police sources, Ross was also the focus of a recently concluded investigation into sex assault of a 12-year-old girl. According to the Saratoga County Sheriff’s Office, since Ross’s arrest on Monday, investigators have been searching for any ties between him and other significant unsolved cases in the area, such as the decades-old kidnapping and murders of 18-year-old Jennifer Hammond and 19-year-old Christina White.