A Massachusetts man is facing decades in prison after a jury found him guilty Thursday of the brutal kidnapping and attempted murder of his friend's 7-year-old daughter.
Joshua Hubert, 43, was convicted on charges of attempted murder by drowning, attempted murder by strangling, strangulation or suffocation, and kidnapping a child under 16 years of age.
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| Joshua Hubert |
Although justice finally came in 2025, the tragic incident actually happened eight years earlier, on August 27, 2017.
That night, the victim's family was gathered at her grandparents’ home on Forestdale Road to celebrate a relative’s birthday.
Hubert, who knew the victim’s father and was more like a family friend was also present at the party.
But around 2:30 a.m., when the event was rounding up, he carried the victim—who had been sleeping on a recliner—out to his car.
The child, who was just 7 years old at the time, later said she first thought it was her grandfather picking her up.
But when she opened her eyes, she saw Hubert putting her in his car, and for the next 90 minutes, Hubert drove around Worcester with the child in his car.
At one point, he allegedly said, "Oops, I guess we're lost." At this point Hubert eventually pulled over, got into the backseat, and attacked the girl.
According to the victim, he raped her before he started to strangle her. The victim said she tried to fight back, by kicking him in an attempt to break free. But when that didn’t work, and fearing for her life, she turned to a desperate survival tactic by playing dead.
"I was thinking that he wanted me dead. If I breathed really lightly and quietly, he would think that I was dead and everything would stop," said the victim.
When Hubert realised the victim may be dead, he covered her head with a bag, wrapped her in a blanket, put her in his trunk and drove to the bridge on Interstate 290 overpass above Lake Quinsigamond.
Just before 4 a.m., Hubert threw the girl, who was still wrapped in a blanket, off the bridge and into the dark waters below, which was about 40 feet.
"The victim stated that she fell for a long time and landed in the waters below," a Worcester Police detective wrote in an affidavit.
Miraculously, the 7-year-old survived the fall and, swam approximately 100 yards to shore. She later testified in court that she felt "slightly relieved" to be in the water because "he couldn't hurt me anymore."
Soaked and shivering, she made her way to a home on North Lear Street in Shrewsbury, as per
MassLive News.
A woman, Maeve Geary, answered the door, wrapped the child in a towel, and gave her Batman pajamas before calling the police.
"Fortunately, a greater tragedy was averted," Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said in a statement back in 2017. "The young victim had the strength to make it to shore and get help," he added.
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| Joshua Hubert |
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| Joshua Hubert |
The victim was immediately rushed to the hospital, where she told detectives her attacker was Hubert, whom she knew as "Josh."
He was arrested but later released on $50,000 bail in 2018 and The COVID-19 pandemic further delayed proceedings.
At first, Hubert faced only attempted murder charges. But in 2022, the victim came forward with new allegations, that he had raped her that night.
She explained that she was too young at the time to fully understand what had happened, but that a cousin later explained things to her after she confided in them when she was older.
After these new allegations, Hubert was formally indicted on rape charges in 2022, as per Law&Crime.
When the trial finally began in early September 2025, the victim, now 15 years old, bravely took the stand to testify against Hubert.
He denied all the allegations, but the jury found her testimony—and the supporting evidence—strong enough to convict him on the major charges.
However , the jury acquitted him on two counts of aggravated rape of a child, citing a lack of sufficient evidence for those particular charges.
Medical experts later revealed that DNA found on the sperm cell from the girl’s underwear did not match Hubert, but instead matched her biological father.
Despite this, the victim maintained that her father was not always present in her life and never assaulted her sexually.
Hubert’s defense attorney, Kevin Larson, has already announced plans to appeal the conviction, arguing that there were problems with how evidence was disclosed.
“There’s a lot of things in this case that are appealable,” Larson told MassLive.
Joshua Hubert now faces a maximum sentence of 35 years in prison, and his sentencing is scheduled for October 3, 2025.
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