A man accused of taking his runaway teenage girlfriend from her father and running the man down in Dubuque is jailed in Wisconsin. Wausau Assistant Police Chief Bryan Hilts says they didn’t know a nationwide alert was out for the pair, when they were called to a noisy late-night neighborhood brawl early Sunday morning.
Thirty-year-old Andrew Herbsleb of Isanti, Minnesota was wanted on a warrant for attempted murder in Dubuque, Iowa. Officers were identifying people at the gathering when a check on Herbsleb came back with an Iowa warrant. He was taken to the Marathon County jail.
The runaway, 16-year-old Kaylynn Cerqua from Milaca, Minnesota had been picked up in Illinois last month. Her father and grandfather had come to get her and on the way home on June 25 they stopped at a gas station in Dubuque. There, she ran from them and got into a car that had been following them. That car ran over her father as it left — he was injured but was treated and released from a local hospital .
Despite at least one report to the contrary, Assistant Chief Hilts says they’re not charged in Wisconsin. This warrant means he’d go free if he could post 25-thousand dollars bond in cash — and if not, he’ll be sent home to the jurisdiction where the warrant was issued. That’s Dubuque, where he’s been charged with attempted murder.
The girl’s not charged with anything, though a note on the warrant helped police identify her as a runaway being sought in Minnesota when they picked her up at the same rowdy gathering. She’s been sent to a juvenile detention facility.
“Our department is really done with the whole matter,” the officer says. The two were picked up and transported to detention facilities, and now he says it’s up to “the home agencies to make arrangements for their transportation back to where they belong.” Authorities say she’s run away from home several times before and left willingly with the 30-year-old man on Saturday, June 24.