The 9-year-old girl who vanished Saturday after going on a bike ride was discovered in a cabinet cupboard of the suspect’s camper home and knew she was being rescued, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Monday.
In a late-night press conference, Hochul detailed how the alleged abductor of Charlotte Sena was done in by his own fingerprint after dropping off a ransom note in the mailbox of the girl’s family home early Monday morning.
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That fingerprint belonged to 46-year-old Craig Nelson Ross, Jr., who was arrested at 6:32 p.m. Monday—the same time cops found and freed Sena from a cabinet inside a camper.
“It’s been a long two days but tonight our prayers have been answered,” Hochul said, adding that Sena’s disappearance was “every parent’s worst nightmare.”
“What happened was extraordinary,” Hochul said, as she outlined the timeline of events that led the the suspect’s capture, beginning at 4:20 a.m. Monday, when he dropped off the note.
Hochul said officers spotted Ross dropping the ransom note in the mailbox, but he’d gotten away by the time they realized what was dropped off.
She added that the fingerprints on the note struck a match in New York’s database of past criminals around 2:30 p.m. Monday afternoon and that investigators found a match from the ransom note to prints recorded after Ross was arrested for driving under the influence in 1999 in Saratoga County.
Data from cell towers also helped narrow a suspect list down, she said, and law enforcement convened on a property with a “double-wide” house, where Ross’ mom lives, and a camper behind her residence where Ross lives.
“After some resistance, the suspect was taken into custody, and immediately the little girl was found in a cabinet, covered,” Huchul said. “She was rescued.” Ross sustained minor injuries in the scuffle, police confirmed, while Sena “knew she was being rescued, she knew she was in safe hands.”
“The home was surrounded by law enforcement and helicopters, they were able to bring her to safety and not long after she was in the arms of her parents at a hospital,” Hochul said on CNN earlier Monday, noting checks determined the child was in “good health.”
Sena “is in good hands” and “appeared to be outwardly physically unharmed at the time,” Hochul added, saying it was obviously a “traumatic” event for the 9-year-old and her family.
It has not been determined if the suspect was known to the family or if he targeted or surveilled Sena. “At this moment, charges have not been brought, but they are fully expected,” Hochul said.
Sena’s family said that at the time of her disappearance, she was bike riding with close friends, but told them she wanted to ride one loop on her own. It was in those few minutes where she seemingly vanished without a trace.
Cops suggested Sena was snatched during her bike ride, pulled into a vehicle against her will or dragged into the woods, but loved ones said it was hard to understand how someone could have swiped the fourth grader as she rode on the short trail loop on her own.
Police said the success was a “culmination of multiple agencies working together for the common goal of bringing this child home to her loving family.”
“We cannot emphasize enough how appreciative we are for the support we received from Charlotte’s community, friends and family,” a statement said.
Earlier, scores of houses near the park combined to leave their front porch lights on in hopes that Sena would eventually show. An amber alert was sent to New York phones on Sunday that said the girl was in “in imminent danger of serious harm and/or death.”
Footage recorded by a NBC News reporter showed Sena’s family clapping and cheering together after they’d heard she was found.
Not including civilian volunteers, cops said 400 certified search and rescue personnel were dispatched to inside and around Moreau Lake State Park to search for Sena. Cops emphasized in a release Monday night that the abduction is still an active investigation.
A GoFundMe for Sena’s search efforts had raised $15,255 by the time she was found.
