The mother of a Bronx toddler who was nearly kidnapped by a deranged creep said her family is still rattled by the brazen, broad daylight grab — and want the “crazy” suspect to get help.
“He’s crazy,” Jana Repka, the mother of 3-year-old victim Lilianna Repka, told The Post Tuesday. “I want to press charges but I don’t want him to go to jail. I want him to get help. Jail is not going to help him.”
Lilianna was returning from an East Tremont park with her grandmother around 1:20 p.m. Monday when police said Santiago Salcedo, 27, grabbed the little girl, wrapped her in a blanket and ran off.
The girl’s 65-year-old grandmother, who was also with her two young grandsons, screamed, alerting a good Samaritan who confronted Salcedo, forcing him to drop Lilianna.
Salcedo ran off but was later nabbed by cops and charged with kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child. He was awaiting arraignment Tuesday.
“We never saw him before,” Repka said, adding that her mother “doesn’t recognize him.”
“We spent the rest of the day at the police station,” she said, her hands shaking as she spoke. “When we got home Lilly kept saying, ‘I love you, mom. I miss you, mom.’ She kept repeating it. She’s said it before, but not as often as yesterday.”
She said Lilianna still doesn’t grasp her close call — and Repka wants to keep it that way.
“I don’t want to make a big deal of it,” she said. “I don’t want to stress her out more, give it any significant meaning. Just normal day, we go on.
“She doesn’t really get what happened, so let’s keep it normal,” she added.