Courtesy photo / Deltona resident Gustavo Dominguez, who has a lengthy arrest record, is being held on $10,000 bond at the Volusia County Branch Jail on a kidnapping charge.DELTONA -- Volusia County Sheriff's deputies arrested a man Friday afternoon who wandered onto the grounds of a daycare center in Deltona and briefly grabbed a 5-year-old girl.
Workers at the center, DTA Academy on Providence Boulevard, immediately realized what was happening and quickly got the girl away from the stranger.
"While the man -- later identified as 36-year-old Gustavo Dominguez -- walked away, the daycare workers moved all of the children to safety inside the center and called the Sheriff's Office," Sheriff's spokesman Gary Davidson said.
"Deputies located Dominguez and took him into custody nine minutes after the call came in. Witnesses described him as babbling incoherently, repeatedly saying 'I'm the one' and talking about wanting to take the girl to paradise."
"Deputies located Dominguez and took him into custody nine minutes after the call came in. Witnesses described him as babbling incoherently, repeatedly saying 'I'm the one' and talking about wanting to take the girl to paradise."
The girl told authorities she didn't know Dominguez. The Sheriff's Office was alerted to the incident at 1:59 p.m. A daycare worker told dispatchers that Dominguez had hopped a 4-foot fence surrounding the playground area and then picked up a girl and tried to hold onto her.
"Others said Dominguez had retrieved a football for the children that had gone over the fence and was talking to some of the kids through the fence before he jumped over it," Davidson said. "After Dominguez took the child, workers said they were quickly able to snatch her away from him. The child wasn't harmed, and Dominguez jumped back over the fence and walked off."
Deputies rushed to the scene, with the first units arriving at 2:02 p.m. At 2:08 p.m., Dominguez was spotted walking along the sidewalk near the corner of Providence Boulevard and East Chapel Drive, about ¾-mile away from the daycare center, and was taken into custody.
"After his arrest, he told another deputy that he saw the girl at an orphanage and thought she was beautiful and had fallen in love with her and wanted to take her with him," the Sheriff's spokesman said.
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