Convicted Sex Offender with Lurid Criminal Past Charged with Kidnapping and Beating 11-Year-Old Boy

In 1998, when Darnell Wayne Hairston was a 33-year-old convicted felon and had a 6-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son, he was charged with raping and choking a 13-year-old girl. He pleaded to attempted molestation and was sentenced to a year’s house arrest and four years on probation, and was designated a sex offender for life. 

He was charged with armed kidnapping in 1999 after he allegedly used a stun gun to shock a woman between 10 and 18 times, and when she didn’t comply with his orders, he held the gun to her 18-month-old child’s head and threatened to do the same to her and to the woman’s 4-month-old child. He was convicted of three counts of false imprisonment and sentenced to 12 years in state prison, serving just five, according to his Department of Corrections’ record. 

In 2012, when he was 47, he was fixing up a travel trailer with a 22-year-old friend from work when they got into an argument. She called him a child molester. He allegedly attacked her with a knife. “You want to see a child molester?” she said he told her as he put his hand “toward her throat,” according to his arrest report, and said, “I should, but I won’t kill you. I will just make you blind, bitch. Call me a molester again, bitch.” He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault and served eight days in the St. Johns County jail. 

He’s faced other charges–burglary, aggravated battery grand theft, resisting an officer with violence, all dropped.   

Hairston, now 60, was booked at the Flagler County jail on New Year’s Eve, initially on a charge of resisting arrest with violence and attempting to grab for a deputy’s gun> Now, in addition to those charges, he faces counts of kidnapping of an 11-year-old child, aggravated child abuse, robbery with a deadly weapon–all first-degree felonies–and battery by strangulation.

A Flagler County Sheriff’s deputy had spotted Hairston traveling south on U.S. 1 at Palm Coast Parkway soon after 7 a.m. on Dec. 31. The license plate on Hairston’s truck was obscured by a thick layer of dirt. The deputy pulled over the Ford pickup. 

Hairston initially complied, rolling down his window and putting both arms out of it. He appeared anxious but answered all questions, according to the deputy’s report, and asked to examine the license plate. There were two juveniles in the pickup. One of them appeared very nervous and reluctant to provide information to the deputy, who called for backup and asked the children to step outside the truck. 

When a deputy approached Hairston to handcuff him, Hairston “pulled away and fled on foot southbound on U.S. Highway 1 toward oncoming traffic,” according to the arrest report. He appeared to slip and fall. When he got up, he grabbed for a deputy’s firearm. The deputy was able to “resecure her firearm and prevent its removal from the holster,” the report states, as other deputies attempted to secure Hairston. He allegedly continued to fight off deputies, injuring the hand of the same deputy whose gun he’d reached for. He was eventually immobilized and booked at the jail on $125,000 bond. 

The other juvenile, Junior Bishop, whose age was not released, fled with the truck and was apprehended. He faces a grand theft charge and is considered a possible co-conspirator in the kidnapping. Bishop was turned over to the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.

On Friday, the Sheriff’s Office issued a release detailing more disturbing information that echoes Hairston’s criminal history and behavior. 

The 11-year-old boy had been reported missing in St. Johns County three days earlier. Hairston lives in Hastings. 

“One of the juveniles stated to a deputy that they had been kidnapped, were not safe, and believed they would be killed if deputies did not intervene,” the sheriff’s release states. “The 11-year-old victim was clearly traumatized and in fear.” The child was taken to a local hospital, where detectives interviewed him. 

“During the interview,” the sheriff’s release states, “the child stated he had been lured to a wooded campsite in Flagler Estates where Hairston choked him until he lost consciousness. After regaining consciousness, the child told detectives he was threatened with a knife and a firearm, tied up with shoelaces and an extension cord, and had duct tape placed over his mouth. The child also told detectives that Hairston held him at the campsite for multiple days and made him travel on the floorboard of his truck covered by a blanket.” 

Flagler and St. Johns sheriff’s deputies searched Hairston’s truck, residence and campsite, finding duct tape, video surveillance equipment, and weapons consistent with the child’s statements. In an interview with detectives, Hairston said he knew the child was missing. His alleged kidnapping was detected by a caller to 911 who recognized Hairston and knew him to be a sex offender, and had recognized the missing child as well. 

“Clearly, thanks to ‘see something, say something’ and our deputies recognizing the victim was very afraid, we rescued a missing child who was in fear Hairston had planned to kill him,” Sheriff Rick Staly was quoted as saying in the release.

“In the hours after Hairston was initially arrested,” he continued, “our team put in a tremendous amount of effort on this investigation — working throughout the day, night, and well into the early hours of New Year’s Day — as they followed every lead, processed multiple crime scenes, and conducted interviews to make sure this child was protected and this pervert would be arrested for the crimes he committed. I commend everyone involved, starting with the caller who ‘saw something, said something;’ our deputies, detectives, analysts, and [crime scene investigators]; and our partners at the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and State Attorney’s Office who worked closely with us on a very fast-moving case to make sure this pervert will face justice and hopefully serve the rest of his life in prison.”