Two men were arrested Sunday after placing two children on their kayaks at Crab Island Sunday afternoon and refusing to give them back to their mothers.
54-year old Daniel Maria Hernandez of Philadelphia Pennsylvania and 55-year old Gabriel Bobavilla Gonzalez of Crestview are each charged with false imprisonment of a child under age thirteen.
A mother from Illinois was on a pontoon boat with her two children, a three year old boy and one year old girl, along with another mother from Santa Rosa Beach and her 11- year old daughter.
The women say the two men placed the three year old boy and 11 year old girl on kayaks and would not give them back, even though the three year old was crying to return. Hernandez is also accused of trying to take the one year old girl from her mother’s arms. In the meantime they say Gonzalez-Bobavilla paddled away with the 11-year old girl. They say the men said they “just want to have fun” and “show them a good time.”
Both mothers say they had no interaction with either man before the incident and never gave them permission to take their children. They say they had to struggle for the children’s’ return as the defendants tried to take them away.
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