A creepy Atlanta-area school bus driver is reportedly out on bond after he allegedly broke into the home of a 10-year-old girl looking for her on Monday.
Gogineni Rayudu, 56, was arrested Tuesday and charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor loitering, but was already back on the streets Thursday after posting $20,000 bail, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The tourniquet justice left the young girl’s distraught mum, Cassie Chea, “in shock”. To protect her family, she has since obtained a restraining order against Rayudu, the report said.
“I’m really horrified,” Chea told the newspaper on Friday. “He must have done something bad — I just don’t know how bad it was.”
Chea said Rayudu — who was the pre-teen’s school bus driver — pestered the child with “strange questions” about his family and had visited her neighborhood several times in the weeks before the terrifying break-in.
The Cobb County School District driver’s apparent “obsession” reportedly reached the point where he entered the front door of the family’s home wearing gloves Tuesday, closed the door behind him and asked for Cea, according to charging documents.
He identified himself as the girl’s bus driver and told Chea that he was here to see her. Schools were closed Monday for Presidents Day.
When Chea asked what he was doing at her house, Rayudu ran away. Chea’s daughter was at the camp at the time and not at home.
Chea told the newspaper that she later spoke to her neighborhood security officer, who told her that Rayudu had visited the area several times in the past month looking for her daughter.
When her daughter asked about the bus driver, she described him as her “special friend” and that Rayudu had changed her seat on the bus so he could see and talk to her.
Chea said he was her daughter’s bus driver for about two months.
“I don’t know what this obsession with her is, but all I can think is if I hadn’t been there, what would have happened?” Chea told The Journal-Constitution.
When she called the Cobb County School District after the incident, she said the school refused to give her the name of the bus driver.
“My child will never get on a bus again,” Chea told the paper. “I don’t even know if I want her in public school anymore, why are we taking this seriously? Or do we say, ‘Oh, he’s weird’?’
The district told the Constitution-Journal it is cooperating with the police investigation, but declined to answer further questions.
“In addition to the actions taken by the law enforcement authorities, the regional policy will be strictly enforced. The safety of our students is our number one priority,” the district said in a statement.
Two other Cobb County School District bus drivers have been charged with crimes in recent years. In 2022, a driver was charged with abusing two adult victims and one juvenile victim. In 2021, another driver was arrested for assaulting a student.
