Registered Sex Offender Arrested For Kidnapping 7-Month-Old Daughter, Toddler Found Safe

A 7-month-old girl, who was kidnapped by her father, was rescued by police from a mobile home in North Carolina. An amber alert was issued to find the child two days ago after the infant was taken away from her mother at knifepoint in Virginia.

A sheriff's deputy entered the mobile home and "immediately grabbed her up and shielded her with great care," Randolph County Sheriff Robert Graves told reporters hours later Tuesday.

The toddler Emma Grace Kennedy "had a great smile on her face and appeared to be in good shape and certainly a great smile on our deputy's face as well," Graves said.

The father, Carl Ray Kennedy — a 51-year-old registered sex offender — had painted his gold Suzuki black to evade capture, police said.

Emma and her mother, Kristen Murphy, were reunited at a local hospital where the baby was examined, said Murphy's sister, Amy Wyatt Metzger, who added Emma is "totally fine and healthy. Everything has checked out just fine."

Virginia State Police had issued an Amber Alert saying the infant faced "extreme danger." At the time of the alleged abduction, Emma was dressed in a light blue clothing with dots and a matching headband.

Metzger said Kennedy had said things in recent months that alluded to hurting Murphy or Emma, such as, "I'm going to blow up your family's house" or "If I can't be with the baby, you can't either."

Kennedy lost custody of the girl a couple of months ago, Metzger said, and had been harassing Murphy and her family in person, by phone and on social media since then.

Kennedy was out of jail on a $250,000 bond on a drug distribution charge at the time Emma was kidnapped, police said. Currently he is being held in the Randolph County jail and will face an extradition hearing to Virginia, police said.