Authorities Still Searching For 3-Year-Old Girl Who Vanished From North Carolina Home
Federal agents have joined state and local authorities in the search for a 3-year-old girl who went missing from her North Carolina home over the weekend and after an Amber Alert was issued Monday.
Mariah Kay Woods, of the rural town of Jacksonville, was last seen at 11 p.m. Sunday after her mother put her to bed, according to WCTI, an ABC affiliate in Eastern North Carolina The girl’s grandmother, who later went to check on her, said she was not in her room. Kristy Woods, Mariah's mother, then reached out to the public for details about her daughter's whereabouts.
"Please, bring her back. She's my baby, she's my everything," Woods said in a press conference. "Just to be able to touch her and hold her and not let her go again. I'd give anything."
Mariah is described as a white female, with blue eyes and brown hair, standing at 2-foot-9 and weighing 30 pounds, according to police. The girl’s grandmother, Melissa Hunter, said Mariah walks with the aid of orthopedic braces on both feet.
"Every second counts when a child is missing, especially after the cold night we just had," Onslow County Sheriff Hans Miller told reporters Tuesday. "No piece of information is too small or insignificant."
The FBI Child Abduction Rapid Deployment was called to help search for Mariah. K-9 units and helicopters provided by the Marine Corps, along with the North Carolina State Highway Patrol had been scouring the wooded area of Camp Lejeune near her home where she was last seen. The Onslow County Sheriff's Office believes she had been abducted.
Anne Edwards, a friend of the family, told NBC-affiliate WRAL that it wasn’t like Mariah to talk to people she wasn’t familiar with.
"She's a sweet child, but she is shy with strangers, so she wouldn't just go with a stranger," Edwards said.
© Copyright IBTimes 2024. All rights reserved.