A man was charged Friday with abducting a 7-year-old girl who had just gotten off her school bus in Zimmerman, Minn., on Wednesday and sexually assaulting her at a hotel in Plymouth.
Joseph Andrew Bragg, 28, of International Falls, Minn., is charged in Sherburne County District Court with kidnapping and first-degree criminal sexual assault of a child.
Joseph Andrew Bragg (Courtesy of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office)
The girl’s disappearance led to a large search of the area in near-zero-degree weather, and an Amber Alert after investigators realized she was likely abducted by a stranger.
Bragg and the girl were located early Thursday in Albert Lea, Minn., more than 130 miles south of where she was abducted. The girl was taken to a hospital to be evaluated.
Authorities announced Bragg’s arrest at a Thursday morning news conference.
“This is every family’s worst nightmare to lose your child, whether they wander off in the terribly cold temperatures that we have in Minnesota, or in a case like this, that they were taken by somebody,” said Drew Evans, superintendent of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Bragg remained jailed Friday in lieu of $4 million bail. An attorney for Bragg is not listed in his court case file.
Charges: He contacted mother through Facebook
According to the criminal complaint:
Deputies were notified the girl was missing about 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Family members said she had gone to school and was usually dropped off by the bus at 3:40 p.m. but had not returned home.
Camera footage from a neighbor showed the girl walking toward her home at 3:53 p.m. then turning and walking back toward her bus stop out of view. No vehicles or people were seen in the footage. Deputies canvassed the neighborhood in search of the girl.
The girl’s mother told law enforcement that she had an unusual online interaction last month involving someone with a Facebook profile username of “Joseph Bragg.” She said he added her as a friend on Facebook early last month and that she added him back as she thought she recognized him as a relative of an associate.
Bragg asked the mother questions about herself, including whether she had children, and “indicated he wanted children of his own, was not discouraged to learn a woman already had children, and indicated a desire to engage in activities with children,” the complaint says. He said he works in child care and asked the mother if she knew anyone in the Zimmerman/Princeton area looking for such services.
The mother ultimately blocked Bragg on Facebook.
The girl’s mother and father told law enforcement they are not otherwise familiar with a “Joseph Bragg,” prompting authorities to identify him as a suspect in the girl’s disappearance.
Law enforcement learned through its investigation that Bragg had access to a rented white 2025 Dodge Ram pickup truck. Location data of his cellphone showed he was traveling south toward the Iowa border, prompting the Amber Alert just before midnight.
At about 12:30 a.m. Thursday, a sergeant with the Albert Lea Police Department saw a white pickup truck matching the suspect’s vehicle at a gas pump in Albert Lea, about 12 miles from the border.
The officer followed the truck as it turned onto County Road 46 and confirmed its license plate number was that of the suspect’s vehicle. He saw the rear passenger taillight was not illuminating and made a traffic stop.
Bragg was driving and the girl was in the backseat, near or on top of a suitcase. No one else was in the truck. Bragg, who said he was on his way out of state, was arrested. He declined to give a statement to law enforcement.
He hired a Lyft driver
Investigators learned Bragg had a Lyft driver take him and the girl from a home residence in the Hamel/Corcoran area to a hotel in Plymouth. The Lyft driver reported driving a man and young female to the Ramada Inn. Hotel staff confirmed the defendant stayed in a room at the hotel.
The room was reserved for the time period between Dec. 27 and Wednesday. Hotel surveillance footage showed Bragg enter the hotel alone but carrying a large red suitcase that appeared to be difficult for him to handle. After about a half hour, Bragg left the hotel with the suitcase.
A search warrant was executed for the hotel room and law enforcement located a number of items, including unused diapers.
Law enforcement located Bragg’s car at home in Hamel. A resident there said Bragg asked to store his vehicle there because he would be traveling out of state.
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Location data confirmed the rented Dodge Ram was in the area of the girl’s home on Wednesday about the time she got off the bus, the complaint says. The truck was also in the same area at the same approximate time the previous day.
The girl was forensically interviewed and examined and reported being in a room with Bragg with her clothes off and described how she was sexually assaulted, the complaint says.
Evans: Talk to your children
Evans, of the BCA, commended the efforts of 200 members of law enforcement and 700 volunteers of the community who “scrambled together” after the girl’s disappearance.
In this case, he said, “there was a lot going on trying to determine if this child was missing, which happens every day across our state, or abducted. And as you can see, this team honed in on this and this frankly evil individual that took this child in this situation.”
Evans said the case highlights the importance of parents talking to their children about strangers who might approach them and ask to go with them.
“It’s a good reminder at this point in time,” he said. “Luckily, we have a child that’s alive today. … But we want to also make sure we’re reinforcing that with our children — unless the parent specifically is the one telling them to go with that person, that they do not get in a vehicle with that person.”
