Amber Alert Kidnap Suspect Arrested
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A convicted sex offender wanted for allegedly kidnapping an 11-year-old boy from his school in Florida was arrested Sunday, two days after the boy was found safe.
Frederick Fretz (search), 42, was arrested after police received a tip that a man resembling him was hitchhiking near Interstate 75 in Cartersville, about 40 miles north of Atlanta (search).
He was being held at the Bartow County Jail (search), police said. Authorities in Marion County, Fla., said they had issued two warrants against Fretz, one for violation of parole and another for failure to register as a sex offender, a felony.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}There was also a federal warrant issued for kidnapping.
Authorities said he would be extradited to Florida within the next few days.
Police said Fretz, who had been living with the boy and his father, picked up the boy at an elementary school in Dunellon, Fla., Tuesday and headed north. His car stalled on an exit ramp north of Atlanta, and he was seen later going into a store with the boy in the nearby town of Emerson.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The boy was found about two miles from the car Friday, and ran toward police as Fretz fled into the woods. Police said there was no indication the boy had been molested.
The father said Fretz never told him he had been convicted of sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy in Pennsylvania in 1991.