Worcester man convicted of kidnapping, throwing girl off bridge

A Worcester man was convicted Thursday of kidnapping and strangling a child before throwing her off a bridge in 2017, court records showed.

Joshua Hubert, 43, was found guilty on two charges of attempted murder, one charge of strangulation or suffocation, and one charge of kidnapping a child. He was acquitted on two additional charges of child rape, court records showed.

“I feel like I’m living in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’” Kevin Larson, Hubert’s attorney, told Boston.com. “I don’t know how rational jurors could look at the evidence and say that Joshua Hubert was guilty in this case.”

The trial began Sept. 8 in Worcester Superior Court, eight years after Hubert kidnapped the child, then 7 years old, from her grandparents’ house in Worcester. Prosecutors alleged that, in the early hours of Aug. 27, 2017, Hubert choked the girl with his hands, raped her, and placed a bag over her head, securing it with rope.

Hubert then threw the girl from the I-290 bridge over Lake Quinsigamond in Shrewsbury, but she survived the assault and swam nearly 100 yards to shore for help from a nearby resident. Hubert pleaded not guilty after his arrest and was ordered held on $1 million bail.

Since 2020, Hubert’s trial had been repeatedly delayed. It was first postponed in 2020 after the prosecutor requested a continuance, and by that point, Hubert was already free with GPS monitoring on $50,000 cash bail.

‘I was thinking he wanted me dead,’ girl testified during Hubert’s trial

Last week, the victim, now 15 years old, testified about the assault, explaining that both she and Hubert were at a birthday party at her grandparents’ home. Hubert was a close family friend and regularly attended the family’s summer gatherings.

After the party ended, Hubert kidnapped the girl and left at around 2:30 a.m., driving around with her in his car for about 90 minutes. Prosecutors alleged that, at one point, Hubert pulled over and raped her, strangling her in the process and leaving bruises across her neck and body.

Though she initially resisted and tried to kick him off of her, the victim said pretended to be dead when he put the plastic bag over her head.

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

She testified that she didn’t understand at the time what rape was and later told her cousin when she realized in 2022, MassLive reported. During the trial, sperm cells that were found on the girl’s underwear from the night of the incident were revealed to match her father instead of Hubert.

Hubert is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 3, according to court records.