HARTFORD, Conn. (WHDH/AP) A Connecticut man has been sentenced to 20 years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to kidnapping a 12-year-old girl from a Massachusetts park and sexually assaulting her before abandoning her in an unfamiliar neighborhood.
Joshua Besaw, 37, of Thompson, enticed the girl into his car at a park in Webster, Massachusetts, on May 31, 2019, and drove her over the state line to a wooded area in Thompson, Connecticut. After he sexually assaulted her, he dropped her off in Dudley, Massachusetts, where she borrowed a stranger’s cellphone to call her parents, according to court documents.
Besaw was arrested two months later, after tests showed DNA on cigarettes he discarded matched DNA evidence collected from the girl. Prosecutors said many Webster residents lived in fear until Besaw was arrested.
He pleaded guilty to a kidnapping charge last year.
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