Overview
- Sheriff’s deputies recovered the reported missing 11-year-old after a bystander called 911 about a suspicious vehicle on Dec. 31, 2025 and stopped the truck on U.S. 1.
- Investigators and the judge described the boy as bound with shoelaces, gagged with duct tape, and strangled to the point of seizures during the multi-day ordeal.
- Hairston, 61, pleaded no contest in August to kidnapping causing bodily harm and related felonies and was found guilty and given a 30-year state prison term at a sentencing hearing on Wednesday.
- The alleged teenage co-conspirator, Junior Bishop, led deputies on a high-speed chase after the traffic stop, was arrested, is being charged as an adult and remains awaiting trial.
- Hairston is held without bond pending transfer to the Florida Department of Corrections, prosecutors argued he is too dangerous for release, and officials credited the citizen tip for saving the child and enabling prosecution.