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7-year-old kidnapping victim survives terrifying plunge into Lake Quinsigamond

WORCESTER — A brave 7-year-old girl is recovering after she was kidnapped from her grandparent’s Worcester home, choked and thrown from a bridge.

The horrifying ordeal was reported to police around 4:30 a.m. Sunday after the little girl swam to shore at Lake Quinsigamond in Shrewsbury.

Worcester police said the girl was taken from the Forestdale Road home around 2:30 a.m. by 35-year-old Joshua Hubert while she was asleep in a chair.

ORIGINAL STORY: Former police dispatcher accused of kidnapping 7-year-old girl

At some point, police said, Hubert choked the girl and then threw her from the bridge into Lake Quinsigamond.
Miraculously, the girl survived the terrifying plunge into the water below and was able to swim about 100 yard to shore.

She told police that she went to the first home she saw that had its light on and knocked on the door.

“A woman from Shrewsbury was awoken by knocks at her door and found the 7-year-old victim standing at her door with pajamas, soaking wet,” prosecutor Cheryl Riddle said in court.

That woman didn’t want her name broadcasted, but she told Boston 25 News that the little girl is the real hero, not her.

“Incredibly brave,” she said of the 7-year-old victim. “I have such admiration. Honestly. I have never seen a child behave so responsibly, and so well. She was incredible, that girl.”

Hubert was able to hide from news cameras in court by standing behind a door.

He was charged with kidnapping, and while the District Attorney’s Office would not speculate on a motive, more charges are likely to follow.

Police are asking all businesses on Lincoln Street, which runs from Worcester into Shrewsbury, to turn in any surveillance video they might have that would show Hubert’s location and direction of travel to gather more evidence.

Boston 25 News learned Hubert started a one-year probationary position as a police dispatcher in Sterling in May 2007, but stopped working there three months later. A spokesperson for the department would not comment on why Hubert did not make it through the full probationary period.

Hubert is being held in jail without bail pending a dangerousness hearing on Thursday.

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