UPPER DARBY, Pa. -
Just hours after she was found soaking wet in only a t-shirt at an Upper Darby Park, the 5-year-old girl was carried in her mother's arms into the Philadelphia Children's Alliance. She came here to help investigators find the woman who abducted her from her school in Southwest Philadelphia Monday morning.
"This was not a random act, in fact this child was targeted," said Capt. John Darby of the Special Victims Unit.
The kindergartner had been through quite an ordeal after a woman identifying herself as "Tiffany" walked into the Bryant Elementary School around 9. a.m.and took the child out of her classroom, telling the girl's teacher she was taking her to breakfast.
"The woman who came into that school kind of knew exactly what to do, where to go , who to see," Darby explained at a morning news conference.
Hours later, police issued an Amber Alert touching off a massive search.
At 4:40 a.m. Tuesday, passerby Nelson Mandela Myers heard the girl screaming and saw her hiding at an Upper Darby Park. She was dressed in a t-shirt and told the good Samaritan "I've been stolen."
"The child was cowering under a sliding board I believe," Darby said.
"We believe that someone placed her in that playground and left her there," said Upper Darby Police Supt. Michael Chitwood.
The 5-year-old was taken to Children's Hospital and reunited with her mother. There were no overt signs of sexual contact or injuries. Police say the girl told them someone helped her escape from her captor. The search for her abductor and any accomplices is in high gear.
"The investigation may take several turns here and has already," Darby said. "We're more interested in finding out, identifying, locating and apprehending the individual took this child.
Police Sources say the girl was blindfolded, kept under a bed and she was fed. Investigators believe she was held at a house somewhere between the school and the park where she was found in either Southwest Philadelphia or Upper Darby.
There's a $15,000 reward offered by the city and the Fraternal Order of Police for information leading to an arrest.
The 5-year-old had been the subject of an Amber Alert. FOX 29 News is no longer using her name as she may have been the victim of a sexual assault.
Surveillance video released Monday night shows the abductor leaving a West Philadelphia elementary school with the 5-year-old.
