What was supposed to be an enjoyable fishing trip, ended with Mathew Brown saving an 8-year-old getting molested underneath a bridge.
Brown said he’s never fished under the bridge on McPhearson Drive near Jacobs Avenue. But on Sunday afternoon, he pulled in because it was closer to where he originally planned to go.
“My dad called me and said he picked up steaks. So, I didn’t want to miss dinner,” Brown said. “I believe God put me here.”
As Brown walked down to the water he looked across and saw a grown man and young child laying on the concrete slope.
“I see the grown man start touching the boys chest lift up his shirt pull his pants down and start assaulting him and I screamed,” Brown said. “I ran up across the bridge and tackled him.”
That’s when Michael Maran, the man he was holding down, started grabbing his groin and squeezing it to try and break free. Brown said he just kept holding him down. And waiting for Charlotte County deputies to arrived.
After calling 911 he gave the phone to the child who told the operator his name and that he was 8-years-old.
“The kid was frantic,” Brown said.
According to the incident report he told investigators Brown, “saved me.”
Maran was arrested in 2011 and 2012 for soliciting a minor and distribution of child pornography. He was out on probation.
According to the report, he admitted to sexually assaulting the child and that he was not allowed to be alone with juveniles.
“It is disgusting it is really disgusting, and I think about my little neighbors that play on my streets,” Brown said. “I just keep thinking about it. I don't know how to feel. I am just glad that dude is not going to be touching that kid no more.”
Maran is held on a $1.5 million bond in the Charlotte County Jail.
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