Kidnapping suspect on suicide watch
Guards at the Riverside Regional Jail, in rural Virginia, are keeping a close eye on Delvin Barnes, officials said.
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DELVIN BARNES' conscience is apparently bearing down on him.
The 37-year-old, who authorities say confessed to kidnapping Carlesha Freeland-Gaither from a corner in Germantown, has been placed on suicide watch in the rural Virginia prison where he's being held, officials said yesterday.
Barnes - who was charged Thursday by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Freeland-Gaither's kidnapping - was extradited to the Riverside Regional Jail in North Prince George, Va. early yesterday, said Lt. Laura Gray, a spokeswoman for the prison.
He's being held there without bail, Gray said, on charges of attempted murder, rape, abduction and related offenses in an unrelated case out of Virginia. Barnes faces a video arraignment in that case Wednesday, Gray said.
In that horrific attack, Barnes allegedly kidnapped a 16-year-old girl as she walked in Richmond, Va., and brought her to his home in Charles City, Va., law-enforcement sources said. He then allegedly raped and assaulted her for several days, pouring bleach and gasoline on her while threatening to kill her.
The girl escaped Oct. 1 and contacted police in Charles City, who put a warrant out for Barnes' arrest.
Meanwhile, Barnes fled to Philadelphia, where he grabbed Freeland-Gaither, a woman he had never seen before, as she walked home from a bus stop near her Germantown apartment late Sunday, according to a statement he gave to investigators.
After a grueling manhunt, Barnes was apprehended, and his alleged victim rescued, Wednesday in a parking lot in Jessup, Md.
Once Barnes' case in Virginia is resolved, he'll be brought to Philadelphia, where he'll be arraigned in federal court in Freeland-Gaither's abduction.
Officials are currently deciding how best to distribute the reward for Barnes' arrest and conviction, which topped out at $47,000.
A source in the Citizens' Crime Commission, which pledged $7,000, said no formal plan has been set yet, but believed that $5,000 of that payout will go to Dwayne Fletcher, the witness to Freeland-Gaither's abduction who initially called police.
The remaining $2,000 will likely go to the Virginia used-car dealer who installed a GPS device on Barnes' Ford Taurus that helped investigators nab him, the source said.