Fingerprints left on a ransom note were “instrumental” in leading cops to the discovery of a 9-year-old girl who vanished Saturday after going on a bike ride, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul confirmed to multiple news outlets on Monday night.
The revelation came hours after Charlotte Sena was found alive and in “good health” at 6:32 p.m. Monday in Upstate New York, not far from Moreau Lake State Park, where she disappeared.
“I promised Charlotte’s parents we would get her back,” Hochul posted to X, formerly known as Twitter. “I’m overjoyed at this news.”
Hochul said on CNN that the fingerprints on the note struck a match in New York’s database of past criminals. Data from cell towers near the park and sex offender databases also helped narrow a suspect list down, she said.
While Hochul stopped short of naming the suspect arrested, police sources the Albany Times Union that the suspect is a 51-year-old man with a sexual abuse criminal history. Those unnamed sources said the man left a note at Sena’s parents house to demand ransom money. Hochul also confirmed this claim. The paper didn’t name the suspect, but reported he “was convicted of sodomy in 1997 and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for plying young boys with drugs and engaging in sex acts with them.”
The Times Union reported that cops raided a house in Milton on Monday evening, about 13 miles south of where Sena lives.
“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 added, noting checks determined the child was in good health.
Sena’s family said 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.
A spokesperson with New York State Police told The Daily Beast that more details about what happened would be released later Monday night. A release from the agency said it will divulge more details in a Tuesday press conference, but added that a suspect had been identified during the investigation, leading to searches of multiple residences where the suspect resides.
It was in one of these residences that Sena was found and the suspect taken into custody.
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,” the 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. It’s unclear the exact time Sena was discovered, but cops posted to social media as recently as 6:27 p.m. that search efforts were ongoing. “They’re not telling us anything,” the family said, adding police had not yet provided them details.
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.
“Everyone in New York is breathing a collective sigh of relief right now,” Hochul said.
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