A former convict accused of snatching a woman off a Philadelphia street and taking her to Maryland made his way to Philadelphia Tuesday.
Delvin Barnes arrived in Center City Philadelphia shortly after noon Tuesday, sources with knowledge of the situation told NBC10.
U.S. Marshals took custody of Barnes Tuesday morning and transported the accused kidnapper back to Philadelphia to face federal charges stemming from the abduction of Carlesha Freeland-Gaither.
Once he arrived in Philly, marshals took Barnes to the federal detention center at 7th and Arch streets in Philadelphia as he awaited a federal court appearance Wednesday afternoon.
Barnes, 37, was jailed on kidnapping and attempted murder charges in Virginia after waiving his extradition from Baltimore County, Maryland Thursday.
Barnes was charged federally with kidnapping. Court documents filed Thursday night said the suspect confessed and told authorities he didn't know the victim, whose Nov. 2 abduction was captured on surveillance video and seen nationwide.
Agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives found Barnes' vehicle — its rear window kicked out by Freeland-Gaither — on a road in Jessup, Maryland, with Barnes and the kidnapped woman lying next to each other in the back seat.
After her rescue, Freeland-Gaither was taken to a hospital but was soon reunited with her mother and other family members, who took her home to Philadelphia.
"Obviously, she's got a long recovery period. The psychological trauma is really something that you can't measure," said Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey. "It's going to take time for those wounds to heal, if ever. But she's home, that's the main thing."
Barnes was released a year ago after serving eight years in prison for a 2005 assault on his estranged wife and her family in Philadelphia. Barnes beat and choked her, punched her mother in the face and hit her father in the head with a glass bowl, court records show.
Pennsylvania's parole board repeatedly denied Barnes early release because it said he lacked remorse and posed a threat to the community.
At the time of his arrest in the kidnapping case, Barnes was wanted in connection with the abduction of a 16-year-old Richmond girl who authorities said was hit in the head with a shovel, stuffed into the trunk of a car and taken to a weathered mobile home 30 miles southeast of Richmond. There, Barnes ordered the teen to take off her clothes, set them on fire and doused her in bleach and gasoline, said sheriff's Capt. Jayson Crawley of Charles City County, Virginia.
The Virginia victim escaped while Barnes was digging a hole, Crawley said.
Authorities identified Barnes as the assailant through DNA obtained from the Virginia victim. They also got a picture of Barnes' vehicle from a traffic camera — and that turned out to be the big break that helped police find Freeland-Gaither.
The exact timing of Barnes' hearing Wednesday wasn't immediately released.
