The former nanny of a 15-year-old accused of murdering his grandmother says that while caring for him, she noticed he kept a stash of hidden knives in his room. The ex-nanny said the boy’s reported odd behavior made her keep her bedroom door locked at night while in his home.
Daily Mail reports that Debbie Gallardo, 55, was the nanny of 15-year-old Logan Mott for several months in 2012, but from almost the beginning, she feared him. Mott is currently behind bars after authorities alleged he killed his grandmother, Kristin French, 53, and buried her in the backyard of his family’s Neptune Beach, Florida, home, before stealing her car and driving towards Canada. He made it to Buffalo, NY, before authorities detained him.
“It was like Michael Myers when he was a little kid in the clown outfit. That is what first stuck in my mind when he came walking out,” Gallardo said. “They are portraying him as not having any issues and it is alarming to me. I knew back then that there was something off with him. He just had this look at times.”
#LoganMott has ONLY talked to his defense attorney; parents haven’t seen him yet. Denied to speak with @JSOPIO so far. Mott’s attorney says “We would ask the public to not jump to any conclusion or rush to judgment until a thorough investigation is completed. “ @wjxt4 pic.twitter.com/sUPdJ0yL4H
— Lynnsey Gardner (@WJXTLynnsey) November 27, 2017
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Gallardo, who accepted Mott’s father’s request for a nanny through care.com, said that she vividly recalled seeing Mott walk down the hallway of his home holding a 15-inch-blade knife. She said the boy was well-behaved on the first night she cared for him, but by the second night, she was terrified.
“Logan was asleep and his dad had told me to leave the hall light on because he was afraid of the dark. I was sitting in the living room on my laptop watching Netflix or something, and it was about an hour into being there when I looked up.”
“I saw Logan coming down the hallway wearing no shirt and boxers. He was carrying a knife like you would carry a torch. It was a hunting knife – large, but not a machete. The kind of knife you would use to skin a deer. The blade was a good 15 or 16 inches long and the end curled up.”
“I was terrified. I said, ‘Logan, what are you doing?’ He was walking very slowly. I said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘Oh, I heard a noise.’ I said, ‘Where did you get that knife from? Put it on the table’……He told me it was OK because the knife was his. I was like, ‘oh my gosh.’ I went in my bedroom that night and locked the door from then on. It was very scary for me to see a child with a knife that big. I was unnerved. I didn’t know if he was in a trance, if he heard a noise or was trying to impress me.”
Gallardo said she never saw any signs of abuse in the home and that Logan was typically asleep most nights when she was there, as his father work overnight shifts as a corrections officer. She left the job in May 2012, when Mott went to live with his mother. However, Gallardo said she had nightmares after caring for Mott, which sparked up again after she heard he allegedly killed his grandmother.
“Even before that I messaged my friends on Facebook and said, ‘My gut says he had something to do with it.'”
Mott, who’s being charged as an adult, claims innocence. He’s currently behind bars in Buffalo, awaiting extradition back to Florida.
Check back with CrimeOnline as additional details become available.
[Feature Photo: Logan Mott and Kristina French/Facebook]
