Bus driver out on bond after breaking into home looking for 10-year-old girl

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 on Thursday after posting a $20,000 bond, the The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The turnstile justice left the young girl’s distraught mom, Cassie Cea, “in shock.” To protect her family she has since obtained a restraining order against Rayudu, the report said.

“I’m just really freaked out,” Cea told the newspaper on Friday. “He was definitely up to something bad — I just don’t know how bad it was.”

Cea said Rayudu — who was the pre-teen’s school bus driver — had been pestering the child with “weird questions” about their family and had visited her neighborhood several times in the weeks before the frightening break in.

The Cobb County School District driver’s apparent “obsession” allegedly grew to the point where he walked into 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 Cea that he was here to see her. Schools were closed on Monday for Presidents Day.

When Cea asked what he was doing in her house, Rayudu fled. Cea’s daughter was at camp at the time and not at home.

Cea told the paper that she later spoke with her neighborhood security officer, who told her that Rayudu had visited the area several times last month asking for her daughter.

When she asked her daughter about the bus driver, she described him as her “special friend,” and that Rayudu had changed her bus seat so he could see and talk to her. 

Cea said he had been her daughter’s bus driver for about two months.

“I don’t know what this obsession is with her, but all I can think of is if I hadn’t been there, what would have happened?” Cea told The Journal-Constitution.

When she called the Cobb County School District after the incident, she said that the school refused to giver her the bus driver’s name.

“My kid’s never getting on a bus again,” Cea told the paper. “I don’t even know if I want her in public school anymore, because are we taking this serious? Or are we just like, ‘Oh, he’s a weirdo’?”

The district told the Constitution-Journal that it is cooperating with the police investigation, but declined to answer further questions.

“In addition to actions taken by law enforcement, district policy will be strictly applied. 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 molesting two adult victims and one minor victim. In 2021, another driver was arrested for assaulting a student.