O’FALLON, Mo. (AP) — Police have arrested a man suspected of kidnapping a 10-year-old girl after he stopped at a suburban St. Louis checkpoint with the child in his vehicle.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the girl was reported missing from her burglarized home around 5:25 a.m. Thursday. O’Fallon Police Chief Roy Joachimstaler said a man was stopped around 6 a.m. at a checkpoint that was set up not far from the girl’s home. Police discovered the girl in the car and took her to a hospital.
Joachimstaler says police were “very, very fortunate to get on it right away.”
Joachimstaler said the suspect apparently knows the family and may be a friend of the girl’s older sibling. Joachimstaler says the man apparently did not have the girl for very long.
