A 13-year-old Pennsylvania girl who was abducted early Wednesday was found more than 150 miles away in New York City with no shoes on, officials said, noting there was a “connection” to her kidnapper.
An Ambert Alert was issued for Janae Kalia-Henry on Wednesday after she was abducted from a home in Reading around 2 a.m., Reading Police Chief Richard Tornielli said in an evening news conference.
Pennsylvania State Police said the child was taken by an unknown man who placed her in a silver Chevrolet Traverse.
She was found more than 15 hours later on Liberty Avenue in Brooklyn around 6 p.m. Wednesday, the New York City Police Department said.
The development came when a person called 911 saying they found a missing girl. Police said that Kalia-Henry told the caller that she was kidnapped from Pennsylvania earlier.
She was taken to the hospital for evaluation and showed no visible injuries, police said.
Tornielli said detectives will take the girl back to her home.
The NYPD and the FBI arrested Dwayne Taylor, 47, in Brooklyn on state charges, Tornielli said. It's not clear what those charges are.
He was taken into custody after Reading police called the NYPD saying a person of interest in the case was in the vicinity of the Broadway Junction subway station, but he wasn't found after a search.
The motive behind the kidnapping was not shared, but Tornielli said authorities "don’t believe that this was a random kidnapping."
"We believed she may have been kidnapped by someone she may have known or was known to her," he said.
Family members told NBC Philadelphia that Kalia-Henry's mother dated Taylor for a couple of months after meeting online. The two had broken up and Taylor broke into the home Wednesday morning and took the girl for unknown reasons, the relatives said.
Reading Mayor Eddie Moran warned the public: “Let this be a lesson to anybody who’s trying to harm one of our little ones, that we will do everything possible to make sure that they get apprehended immediately."
