Raw video: Suspect brought into custody | Jeremy Desel's report

HOUSTON -- The 25-year-old man charged with aggravated kidnapping and indecency with a child in the abduction of a 7-year-old from a school bus stop in northeast Harris County confessed Tuesday night, police said.

Authorities believe Kenneth Stewart was the man who lured the girl from the bus stop Monday by telling her that her mom wasn’t home and he was sent to pick her up.

“The patrolman who made the initial abduction call when they gave him the suspect vehicle description, he remembered that fit a suspect vehicle description from a March 21 burglary. He also lifted some fingerprints on that scene, so we called down to Aphis and said expedite those prints,” Lt. John Denholm of the Harris County Sheriff’s Department said.

Those prints were matched to Stewart and investigators put his picture in a spread and took it to the young victim.

“We took it to the little girl and her eyes like almost bugged out of her head when she saw him. She said, ‘that is him,’” Lt. Denholm said.

They arrested him in Liberty County just after 10 p.m.

“He’s had numerous addresses, and the car’s actually registered to his mother. So we got that information off a report where he was a suspect in a burglary of a motor vehicle in Houston and tracked him to Liberty County where a Gulf Coast Task Force took him down,” Lt. Denholm said.  

News of the abduction sparked outrage among parents and school administrators in the area.

“Never go anywhere with a stranger. Even if they say, you know, 'your mommy is sick, you need to come with me so I can take you to her.'They know not to do that,” Michelle Burgess said.

Deputies said the girl got in the car, and the suspect drove her to several locations before dropping her off some 20 miles away in Baytown, where the girl went into the Bay Area Rehabilitation Center and the police were called.

While child abduction is something no parent can imagine, it’s a scenario every parent should be prepared for, police say.

They cover the topic in the department-issued parent’s guide to child safety.

The guide says, in cases like the one at the bus stop, the abductor uses the emergency situation to confuse the child.

The department says the best prevention is to have a list of trusted persons that can pick your child up in an emergency, and to make sure your child knows they can only leave with those people.

Humble ISD officials sent out an alert to the entire district after the 7-year-old’s abduction and the attempted abduction of a 9-year-old girl from the same bus stop. 

“We really want to be able to let them go and play, but they are going to need parental support at all times,” Kathy Patterson said.

Both girls attend Summerwood Elementary School.

Stewart has a previous criminal record.

He was sentenced to one year in jail for assault with bodily injury just last October, and before that he has what appears to be a DUI and child endangerment charge for driving drunk with a child in his car.

He's also been charged with misdemeanor harassment, burglary, theft and marijuana possession in the past, and was previously convicted of making terroristic threats.

Records indicate that more than once he was given court-ordered psychiatric exams.

In this latest case, Stewart could get up to 99 years in prison for the kidnapping charge alone.

Detectives admit they’re hoping to put this guy away for life.