HARTFORD, Conn. (WHDH) — A Springfield man accused of stealing a car with a 3-year-old boy in the back seat in Chicopee before abandoning the child in a hotel parking lot in Connecticut was arraigned on kidnapping and child endangerment charges on Monday
Vadim Vorobyov, 52, has been charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, and fugitive from justice in Connecticut and is also expected to be charged with kidnapping, child endangerment, and motor vehicle larceny in Massachusetts.
A preliminary investigation suggests that at approximately 8:40 a.m., Vorobyov came across the Toyota Camry as it was parked outside a residence on Exchange Street in Chicopee with the motor running and the child in the backseat. He entered the vehicle and drove away.
The Camry was captured on a license plate reader heading south toward on Route 91 in Longmeadow. Subsequent information, with the cooperation of Toyota, led to the recovery of the vehicle, parked and unoccupied, in a shopping plaza parking lot on Kennedy Road in Windsor, Conn.
The vehicle’s location was pinpointed at approximately 10:30 a.m. Windsor Police, Connecticut State Police, Chicopee Police, and Massachusetts State Police officers converged on the lot and began searching for the child and the suspect.
A short time later an employee from the Rodeway Inn & Suites on Bridge Street in East Windsor, Conn., contacted police to report that a child had been left on their property. The boy was transported to a Massachusetts hospital for a precautionary examination.
Meanwhile, Officers and Troopers searching the shopping plaza located Vorobyov at Anytime Fitness, one of the businesses in the plaza, and took him into custody.
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