AISD changes bus stop after abduction

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Police said a nine-year-old girl is now safe after an alleged abduction on the way to school last week. Still, the incident has prompted the Austin Independent School District to reconsider how she and her neighbors get to school.

Police said the girl's alleged kidnapper abducted her from the 9200 block of Brodie Ln. last week, as she walked to Cowan Elementary. The alleged kidnapper, 42-year-old Charles Eugene Butcher, is a convicted sex offender.

His previous convictions include sexual assault of another 9-year-old girl in Korea back in 1991 when he was in the military and abduction of a child using a weapon when he was living in Ohio in 2005.

The little girl in the Austin case told police he snatched her from the street, took her to his apartment, shut her in the closet, then later dropped her back off close to her home. Now, the school district is making sure she never has to stray too far from the protection of her own apartment.

"It's pretty scary,” said Monica Martinez, a neighbor. “Certainly, we want for kids to be safe, and it's hard to believe that something like that could happen that easily in this neighborhood."

Martinez said only people with the code to the girl’s gated complex can get in, but last week a school bus was added to that list. AISD shifted a route to circle through that neighborhood, just so the girl won't have to walk as far to school and back.

Other residents said only a handful of children live here. The re-routed bus is a big change, one they've already seen just a few days after the alleged abduction.

"If you can just walk out your garage and have your kid get picked up,” said Lauren Kinler, “I don't think there's anything more convenient than that."

Plugging the girl's address into a Offender Tracker App for iPhone, which takes information directly from the state's sex offender registry, Austin News was able to add up and map the number of registered sex offenders living within two miles of her apartment. It totaled 38 and doesn't include Butcher, who failed to register as a sex offender when he moved to Austin from Ohio.

Neighbors said it shows there's more danger along any stretch than a parent might know. Martinez said, keeping your kid close - like with a doorstep bus stop - is the only way to make certain they're as safe as possible.

"I would think that it would certainly set people's minds at ease to know that they're being picked up and dropped off closer to home,” she said.

The girl's mother is very pleased with the change the school made. When Austin News stopped by her apartment, she said it was a week, but “they're getting through alright.” Beyond that, she would not comment, as this is still an ongoing investigation.

Butcher is still in the Travis County Jail, charged with Aggravated Kidnapping and Failure to Register as a Sex Offender. His bond is set at $600,000.