9-Year-Old Girl Found After Going Missing From New York Campsite and People Have Questions
It's 6:15 pm on Saturday, September 30, at Moreau Lake State Park in upstate New York. 9-year-old Charlotte Sena is there on a camping trip with family and friends, riding bikes around a loop with her pals. She decides to ride around the loop alone one last time, promising to return to camp right after- only she doesn't come back.
What followed was a desperate 48-hour search across the state of New York as everyone mobilized to find the missing girl. Luckily, she was finally rescued on the night of October 2- but the disturbing circumstances left people with questions, especially as more details emerged.
It was a parent's worst nightmare. When Charlotte hadn't returned to the campsite after 15 minutes, her family went out to the bike path looking for her. There they found Charlotte's bike, but no Charlotte. This didn't appear to be a wildlife attack- someone had kidnapped Charlotte.
Authorities went into overdrive attempting to locate and rescue Charlotte as soon as possible- and as Stephanie Ramos reported on @abcworldnews, they succeeded. Last night, Charlotte was thankfully found alive and in good health, and a suspect was taken into custody.
The question most people had immediately after the child's rescue was why anybody would kidnap her in the first place. Many people were worried that this could have been the work of a predator targeting families in upstate New York, while others wondered what other factors might have driven this kidnapping.
More details have emerged since the ABC report aired last night. After Charlotte was kidnapped, the Independent reports that her kidnapper left a ransom note in her family's mailbox during a brief time when their home was empty and unmonitored. Luckily, this cruel taunt ironically ended up being the perp's downfall.
Law enforcement took fingerprints from the note and cross-referenced them with their database, finding a match. This led them straight to the home of one Craig Nelson Ross, Jr- or more precisely, to a camper van he lived out of on his mother's property. Inside the 47-year-old's van, authorities found Charlotte stowed in a cabinet, alive and well.
It's still not clear why Nelson Ross, Jr did this. His prior arrest was for a DWI and he had no history of abduction, but the nature of the kidnapping makes it seem as if he was scoping out the campsite. Yet while this story is absolutely chilling, it thankfully ended on a high note- and Craig Nelson Ross, Jr will not be able to prey on anyone else for a very long time.
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