US police find young girl alive hidden under secret staircase room after having been missing for two years
Paislee Shultis was found alive and well in her grandfather’s house.(Saugerties Police Department)
Two years after she went missing, a six-year-old girl in the United States has been found alive and in good health.
Key points:
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Police found Paislee Shultis in a house in the town of Saugerties, following a tip-off
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The girl’s biological parents had been suspected of abducting her two years ago
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Her parents were arrested as was her grandfather, she was returned to the care of her legal guardian
Police found Paislee Shultis on Monday, in a makeshift room underneath a staircase in a house in the town of Saugerties in New York state, two years after she went missing from Spencer, New York, about 290 kilometres to the west.
At the time, police believed her biological parents, Kimberly Cooper Shultis, 33, and Kirk Shultis Junior, 32, abducted her.
The couple did not have custody of the girl, police said.
On Monday, police said they received a tip about the girl’s whereabouts and obtained a search warrant
Police said they went to the girl’s grandfather’s house where they searched for about an hour.
The girl and her mother were found hiding in a dark, wet enclosure under the stairs.
Paislee was taken to police headquarters where paramedics examined her and found her to be in good health, before she was released to her legal guardian, police told local media.
Police arrested her parents and the girl’s grandfather, Kirk Shultis, 57.
They face charges of custodial interference and endangering the welfare of a child.
Police said they interviewed her biological father several times since the girl went missing but he maintained that he had no knowledge of her location and told officers that he had not seen her.
Reuters
