Investigators learned that sometime before February 2, 38-year-old Denise Kroutil approached a co-worker, 23-year-old Nathan Firoved, and asked him to kidnap her nephew to “scare” him. The victim’s mother, 25-year-old Elizabeth Hupp, and grandmother, 58-year-old Rose Brewer, agreed with the plan to kidnap the young boy to teach him a lesson.This staged kidnapping incident lasted four hours. Child protective services and the police were called the following day by the child's school.
The boy’s mother and grandmother did not know Nathan’s last name, only Kroutil.
On Monday, February 2, authorities said Firoved parked his pickup truck by the boy’s bus stop and waited for him to be dropped off after school. Firoved lured the six-year-old into his truck and drove off.
Firoved told the frightened young boy he would never see his mother again and that he would be “nailed to the wall of a shed.”
The young boy began crying, at which point Firoved pulled out a handgun and threatened to harm the child if he didn’t stop crying.
Investigators said Firovfed bound the boy’s hands and feet with plastic bags, then covered the child’s face with a jacket. Firoved drove the boy to his own home, carried the child into the basement, and left him there.
Kroutil, the boy’s aunt, walked down into the basement, pulled the victim’s pants down, and began shouting that he could be sold into sex slavery. She also allegedly chastised the child for not trying to resist her or Firoved.
The boy was kept in the basement for some time longer before he was finally unbound and allowed to go upstairs, at which time his family lectured him about stranger danger.
Firoved, Brewer, and Kroutil have all been charged with kidnapping, felonious restraint, and abuse/nelgect of a child. Hupp has been charged with kidnapping and abuse/neglect of a child. All four are being jailed on $250,000 bonds.