DALLAS — The suspect wanted in the kidnapping of a 7-year-old girl that triggered a June AMBER Alert is now in custody, Dallas Police said Friday.
Leonard Lamar Neal is suspected in the abduction of two children and was wanted for aggravated kidnapping, kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault of a child. As police sought him, he was added to the Texas Department of Public Safety's Texas 10 Most Wanted Fugitives List, with a $10,000 reward offered for information that would lead to his arrest.
Nearly a month after the kidnapping Neal, 41, is suspected of committing, Dallas Police sources tell WFAA that multiple law enforcement agencies visited Neal's mother's home in DeSoto on Friday afternoon after receiving a tip that he was in the house. Upon arriving at the address, sources say Neal's mother told officers that she'd heard noises upstairs in the house, but denied that he was there.
Sources say that, as police were speaking with Neal's mother, Neal escaped the house and entered a wooded area nearby. As police searched that wooded area, sources tell WFAA, witnesses called 911 on Friday to report that they had spotted Neal at a bus stop near the intersection of South Polk Street and West Camp Wisdom Road in southern Dallas -- about a 10-minute drive away from his mother's home.
Upon receiving the tip, sources said DPD patrol officers arrived at the bus stop at 4:02 p.m. and approached Neal. As they did, sources said, Neal walked onto a DART bus that had also arrived at the location. Before officers could complete the arrest, sources tell WFAA that Neal slashed his own throat with a box cutter.
Police then called paramedics to the scene, sources said, and Neal was transferred to Methodist Dallas Medical Center, where he remains in custody.
He is currently in critical condition, police said. Sources said he is expected to survive his injuries.
On Tuesday, June 14, the Dallas Police Department announced that they were searching for Neal in connection to the AMBER Alert from Sunday, June 11.
Police said a 9-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl left their apartment around noon that day in the 1500 block of Argentia Drive. According to police, the children were then approached by the suspect who offered them a ride in his car.
The suspect then drove the children to a store near West Kiest Boulevard and South Polk Street, police said. The boy walked to the door of the store and, when he turned around, he saw the car drive away with the girl still inside, according to police.
A witness at a nearby restaurant told WFAA that a woman rushed into the building and said that a boy was wandering around the parking lot, crying.
"[The woman] came inside the restaurant," Jessica Montanez told WFAA. "She asked for water for [the boy], and she pulled me aside and told me that his sister was missing. that someone kidnapped his sister."
Montanez and the other woman called 911, and police responded to the area just after 12:30 p.m.
The AMBER Alert was issued at 6:45 p.m. that evening for the 7-year-old girl.
Hours later, at around 12:40 a.m. Monday, the 7-year-old was found wandering near her family's apartment complex on Argentia Drive. She was taken to a local hospital to be checked on, police said.