Police in New York State’s Saratoga County detained a 46-year-old man on Monday in connection with the kidnapping of 9-year-old Charlotte Sena. He is now being held there.
According to the Albany Times-Union, Craig Ross, who is charged with first-degree abduction, was arraigned in Milton Town Court on Tuesday and was then imprisoned without bond at 3:40 a.m.
Charlotte inexplicably vanished last Saturday while on a family excursion in Moreau Lake State Park. The next day, an Amber Alert was swiftly sent out out of concern about her safety.
New York State Police reportedly saw a guy covertly place a ransom letter in the family’s home’s mailbox, according to Governor Kathy Hochul.
“He literally drove up to the family’s mailbox, assuming they were not home [at] 4:20 in the morning, opens the mailbox and inserts the ransom note leaving the critical piece of evidence behind — his own fingerprint,” According to the New York Post, Hochul remarked.
Police are looking for fingerprints on the note. According to Fox, one person of interest was exonerated, but the prints of a second person matched those of a guy who had previously been detained in Saratoga County in 1999 for DUI.
Around 2 p.m. on Monday, searchers began scouring the state park’s extensive forests. Police matched Ross’s fingerprints to those on the message, according to the Times-Union.
On Monday afternoon, the FBI and the New York State Police carried out raids at facilities associated to Ross. Both the trailer where the girl was found and Ross’s mother’s mobile home were the targets of the raids.
Find more about the quaint Milton neighborhood, which is only 13 miles from the girl’s Saratoga Springs home.
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“Within the camper they located the suspect,” Hochul reportedly stated, according Fox.
“After some resistance, the suspect was taken into custody, and immediately the little girl was found in a cabinet, covered. She was rescued.”
“She knew she was being rescued,” According to The New York Times, Hochul remarked. “She knew she was in safe hands.”
According to Fox, Charlotte and her family were ecstatically reunited at a hospital.
“We are just elated she came home,” Fox quotes Charlotte’s aunt Jene Sena as saying.
A dependable family friend named Patrick Kane said that the episode was quite rare for the peaceful rural area.
“This stuff doesn’t happen here,” He continued while announcing that Charlotte will return home even before her rescue.
“God’s going to bring her back home. I know that. I mean, it may not be today, and I don’t know what kind of circumstances she’s under right now, but I hopefully it’s something that she can deal with the rest of her life because she’s coming back home,” he said.
