Tragic Incident: 7-Year-Old Girl Kidnapped and Strangled by Family Friend

A Massachusetts man faces the prospect of decades behind bars after a shocking kidnapping and attack on his friend”s young daughter.

On Thursday, Joshua Hubert, 43, was convicted by a jury of his peers in Worcester County on one count each of attempted murder by drowning, attempted murder by strangling, strangulation or suffocation, and kidnapping a child under 16 years of age.

He was acquitted of two counts of aggravated rape of a child.

The underlying incident occurred on Aug. 27, 2017.

Prosecutors alleged Hubert kidnapped the victim – a 7-year-old girl – and raped her in his car before throwing her off a bridge along the Interstate 290 overpass into Lake Quinsigamond, the body of water situated between the city of Worcester and the town of Shrewsbury.

The girl, now 15 years old, survived the fall, swam to shore, and sought aid at a home on the Shrewsbury side of the lake.

“Fortunately, a greater tragedy was averted,” Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said in August 2017. “The young victim had the strength to make it to shore and get help.”

The kidnapping occurred at the child’s grandparents’ home on Forestdale Road in Worcester at around 2:30 a.m. on the day in question. Hubert had been attending a barbecue at the family’s home, and was said to be familiar with the family due to his friendship with the girl’s father, according to a report by The Boston Globe.

Hubert is believed to have abducted the girl from a chair while she slept during the waning hours of the get-together. The girl, who testified during the trial, said she initially believed it was her grandfather picking her up but awoke to find the defendant putting her in his car, MassLive reported.

The defendant then drove around with the victim for some 90 minutes before the attack and subsequent disposal attempt.

“Oops, I guess we’re lost,” Hubert said at one point, the girl testified.

The girl went on to say she kicked her assailant during the attack – and relayed some of her feelings and survival efforts.

“I was thinking that he wanted me dead,” she said. “If I breathed really lightly and quietly, he would think that I was dead and everything would stop.”

Prosecutors alleged the defendant choked and raped the girl in the backseat of his vehicle and then “placed a bag over [the girl’s] head and secured the bag with a rope in an attempt to murder her,” according to court documents obtained by the Globe.

“The victim stated that she fell for a long time and landed in the waters below,” a Worcester Police Department detective wrote in a search warrant affidavit obtained by MassLive.

During the trial, which began in early September and spanned exactly two weeks, the girl also testified she was “slightly relieved” to find herself in the water because it meant “he couldn’t hurt me anymore.”

The swim was some 100 yards across a lake with depths of up to 90 feet. She finally arrived at a house where a woman wrapped her in a towel and gave her Batman pajamas to wear. Then she was taken to a hospital where she watched the Disney show “Doc McStuffins” and answered what questions she could at the time.

After her miraculous survival, the girl told police her “friend Josh” was the man who threw her off the bridge, according to MassLive.

Hubert made bail in 2018. He was later indicted on the rape charges in 2022, when the girl said she realized what rape entailed, but remained released on a personal recognizance bond.

During the trial, it was shown that the DNA on the girl’s underwear from the night of the incident did not match the defendant.

But another potential defense advantage did not sway jurors.

Last week, Hubert’s attorney secured a one-day pause after belatedly receiving cellular phone location data from an expert hired by the state, which he described as “exculpatory in that [the findings] are inconsistent with the defendant being on or near the I-290 bridge at the time the complaining witness was allegedly thrown in the water.”

The defendant’s attorney has said he will appeal the conviction.

“There’s a lot of things in this case that are appealable, probably the biggest one being the late disclosure,” defense attorney Kevin Larson said, MassLive reported after the verdict.

Hubert faces a maximum sentence of 35 years behind bars. Sentencing is slated for Oct. 3.