S.I. Handcuffing-Abduction of 13-Year-Old Was Random

The strange Staten Island abduction of a 13-year-old boy twists again. The boy, who said he was taken at knife point while walking to catch a bus to school, had been handcuffed and stripped to his underwear in Brady's Pond, had told police he was attacked by someone he met on MySpace. Which is confusing, because the boy had originally said a stranger attacked him, but then police suspected there was another story. But now it turns out the attacker, William Marcus, did randomly seek out the boy.

Marcus had apparently confessed his crime to a friend, who called the police with the tip. Police sources tell the Staten Island Advance that Marcus wanted to rob the boy "for money to buy pot." But when he stripped the boy, he "got sexually excited," and, as the Advance puts it, "allegedly pulled off the boy's shorts and committed a degrading sexual act." (The boy was not penetrated.) Police found the boy's cell phone and bracelet at Marcus's home.

Marcus was charged with robbery, kidnapping, sexual abuse, menacing and much more. Marcus is also suspected of another Staten Island sexual abuse incident this month. The incident's many turns tripped up the papers. Today's Daily News' story, headlined "Handcuffed S.I. boy admits it was Web tryst gone bad," seems to be based on polices sources, who "expressed relief yesterday that it was not a random sexual assault."