Bradenton, Fla. – Clay Moore’s mother and stepfather don’t want to think about what might have happened if they hadn’t made him repair his ripped school uniform jacket instead of buying him a new one.
A safety pin from the torn jacket’s sleeve – and the 13-year-old’s composure in frightening conditions – freed him after a gunman kidnapped him, duct-taped his wrists and left him deep in thick, remote woods 20 miles from home, the boy’s stepfather said Tuesday.
Clay put the pin in his mouth, picked away at the tape and walked away hours after he was taken. He found a farmworker in a field and called his stepfather, Steve Kelle, from the man’s phone, “as calm as if he was calling from a friend’s house,” Kelle said.
Clay’s mother, Traci, recalled getting the call notifying her that Clay had been snatched.
“I can’t put into words how absolutely horrifying it was when we received the news,” she said. “But I have to say when I got this phone call (that he was safe), it was the best thing that ever happened in my life.”
Clay was abducted at his bus stop in Parrish, 40 miles south of Tampa, on Friday morning by a man authorities believe was 22-year-old Vicente Ignacio Beltran-Moreno, who is still at large.
Kelle said the boy told him he was nervously playing with the pin in the kidnapper’s truck and put it in his mouth because “he just thought it would be helpful.”
The gunman took the arts school student to a wooded area, tied him up, stuck a sock in his mouth and left him.
Clay spat out the sock and the pin, and used a stick and his mouth to retrieve the fastener from the ground, Kelle said. He picked at the duct tape binding his wrists until he could get them loose.
“We are truly proud of Clay,” Kelle said. “He did an incredible job on his own. He kept his head about him.”
