PHILADELPHIA — A passerby found an abducted 5-year-old girl huddled beneath a playground slide in the pre-dawn cold Tuesday, nearly 20 hours after a stranger claiming to be her mother signed her out of her Philadelphia elementary school under the guise of taking her to breakfast.
Nelson Mandela Myers said he found the freezing girl barefoot, wearing only a damp adult-sized T-shirt. He was drawn to the park in Upper Darby by her cries for help.
‘‘She was just mainly shivering and saying that she was cold,’’ he said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon. Myers, 27, wrapped her in his jacket and called police from his cellphone. ‘‘I’m just glad I was there at the right time.’’
The girl was taken Monday morning from the William C. Bryant School, in West Philadelphia. Authorities released surveillance video showing a woman wearing a full-length, black Muslim garment, her face covered by a black veil, taking the girl out of the school.
Next up: veil laws.
After being discovered Tuesday, the girl was taken to the hospital to be checked out, but police said she did not appear to be hurt. Captain John Darby of the Philadelphia Police Department said officials are screening the girl to determine whether she may have been sexually assaulted.
‘‘There were no overt signs of physical injuries to the child,’’ Darby said at a news conference, adding that police have had only preliminary interviews with the girl. ‘‘We have a fragile victim here.’’
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The girl’s mother had appeared on local media Monday night, tearfully pleading for her safe return, and explaining how she also wears the traditional chador and niqab.
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The Associated Press is not naming her because it generally doesn’t identify potential victims of sexual assault.
Darby said the suspect went into the school Monday a short time after the girl’s mother had dropped her off there. The woman signed in with a hall monitor — using an illegible signature — and then went straight to the girl’s classroom....
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"1 charged in abduction of girl from Philadelphia school" by Patrick Walters | Associated Press, February 16, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — A 19-year-old day-care worker was formally charged Friday in the abduction of a 5-year-old girl from her Philadelphia elementary school last month....
Christina Regusters worked at an after-school care program attended by the victim, who was taken out of her classroom Jan. 14 by a woman posing as her mother and wearing a black Muslim garment, her face covered by a veil, according to Philadelphia police Captain John Darby, who heads the department’s special victims unit. The woman had said she was coming to take the girl out to breakfast, according to school officials....
Investigators believe the suspect and victim then walked a few blocks to a home where a man was waiting. The child was blindfolded, told to remove her clothes and put on a black, adult-sized T-shirt, and ordered to hide under a bed, authorities said. She was apparently dumped about 18 hours later at a park about a mile from her school, just outside the city, and was found by a passerby, shivering under playground equipment. When she was found, the girl told her rescuer, ‘‘I’ve been stolen.’’
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"1 charged in abduction of girl from Philadelphia school" by Patrick Walters | Associated Press, February 16, 2013
PHILADELPHIA — A 19-year-old day-care worker was formally charged Friday in the abduction of a 5-year-old girl from her Philadelphia elementary school last month....
Christina Regusters worked at an after-school care program attended by the victim, who was taken out of her classroom Jan. 14 by a woman posing as her mother and wearing a black Muslim garment, her face covered by a veil, according to Philadelphia police Captain John Darby, who heads the department’s special victims unit. The woman had said she was coming to take the girl out to breakfast, according to school officials....
Investigators believe the suspect and victim then walked a few blocks to a home where a man was waiting. The child was blindfolded, told to remove her clothes and put on a black, adult-sized T-shirt, and ordered to hide under a bed, authorities said. She was apparently dumped about 18 hours later at a park about a mile from her school, just outside the city, and was found by a passerby, shivering under playground equipment. When she was found, the girl told her rescuer, ‘‘I’ve been stolen.’’
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