Authorities were able to find the victim and the suspect in New York City after a 13-year-old Pennsylvania girl was kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night, according to police.
A mother called Reading police on Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. to report her daughter missing from their residence. At a news conference on Thursday, Chief Richard Tornielli claimed that the woman said police she last saw her daughter at 10:30 p.m. the previous evening in her bedroom.
According to Tornielli, investigators then watched home security video from Wednesday about 2 a.m., which showed a guy entering the girl’s house while wearing a sheet over his head. The girl was then seen by cameras leaving the residence with the male following close behind. Police claim that he brought the youngster to a car and placed her in the backseat.
The mother’s ex-boyfriend Duane Taylor was named by police as a suspect.
In the late afternoon on Wednesday, police in New York City’s Brooklyn area issued a national Amber Alert for the missing adolescent. They then proceeded to Taylor’s residence and detained him there. But there was no sign of the girl.
She was subsequently discovered in Brooklyn, strolling along a street. According to Tornielli, she had gone up to someone on the street and informed them she had been abducted. Before being reunited with her mother, she was sent to a nearby hospital for observation.
The police chief said that Taylor is thought to be the lone suspect in the event. While officials continue their inquiry, he is still in detention.
We can’t have people like these harassing and scaring the people in our community, Tornielli remarked.
Tornielli extended his gratitude to the several authorities who reacted to the abduction, including the FBI and the NYPD, and sent his best wishes to the girl and her family.
“I want to extend my appreciation to the family for their cooperation that they extended to us throughout the investigation and extend our thoughts and our prayers to the victim and her family,” he said. “She’s been through a very traumatic experience, the whole family has, the community has, and we just hope and pray they are able to get through this without too much more trauma.”