MILTON, N.Y. (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – The man suspected of kidnapping a 9-year-old girl at an upstate New York park last weekend is facing scrutiny for any potential connections to the cases of two young women who were abducted and murdered in the area in the early 2000s, an investigator said in a report Friday.
The two women—18-year-old Jennifer “Moonbeam” Hammond and 19-year-old Christina N. White—were last seen in Saratoga County mobile home parks that were home to suspect Craig N. Ross, 46, and his family for decades, the Albany Times Union reported.
The lead investigator in the homicides of those two women, Matthew Robinson of the Saratoga County Sheriff's Office, told the outlet that while investigators "have no information to indicate that [Ross] was or was not involved," one of the steps investigators will take in their investigation of him "will be any association he has with any major case in the area."
"And that is something that we are actively working on. But at this time, we have no information to indicate that he is involved in any of those [two] cases," Robinson said.
White disappeared from Saratoga Village Mobile Home Park in Ballston Spa in June 2005, and her remains were found in March 2006 in Daketown State Forest.
Hammond was last seen in August 2003 at the Creek and Pines Mobile Home Park in Ballston Spa. Her remains were found six years later, also by a hunter, in the woods near Lake Desolation State Forest.
According to the report, the mobile home where Hammond went missing was about 1,000 feet from where Ross' mother has lived for three decades—the same property where authorities said the kidnapped 9-year-old was found in "good health" Monday evening by a SWAT team that arrested Ross.
Ross is being held without bail at the Saratoga County Correctional Facility after he was arraigned Tuesday on a charge of first-degree kidnapping. Police said more charges are expected.
Authorities believe he’s the man who kidnapped the girl on Saturday evening as she rode a bicycle at Moreau State Park, where her family was on a camping trip. He was tracked down via fingerprints on a ransom note he allegedly left in the mailbox of the girl's family.