BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. — A man was sentenced Wednesday to 47 years to life in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 9-year-old girl who went missing from a state park in upstate New York last year.
Craig N. Ross Jr. pleaded guilty in February to taking the girl Sept. 30 from a campground at Moreau Lake State Park, a rural area about 35 miles north of Albany.
The child had been riding on a bike path with friends at the campground near her home on a Saturday evening when she went to take one last lap of the path on her own and didn’t return.
The disappearance sparked a two-day search involving more than 100 people before the girl was found alive in a cabinet at a camper Ross was staying in.
The break in the case came when law enforcement guarding the girl’s home saw someone place a ransom note in its mailbox. Police eventually matched fingerprints on the note to Ross, who was in the database because of a 1999 drunk driving case, and state police and an FBI SWAT team then descended on the camper.
