A man is in custody after a missing 5-year-old girl was found in Queens, hours after she was last seen hours earlier with a man at a supermarket.
The young girl was reported missing around 1 p.m. Tuesday after she had not been seen since 9 a.m., according to police. Photos showed her wearing a pink flower dress at a Foodtown Supermarket on 37th Avenue near 79th Street in Jackson Heights, the NYPD said, along with a 75-year-old man wearing a blue shirt and khaki pants.
Police set a wide net to find the girl, deploying a bloodhound, drone and helicopter in hopes of finding the girl.
She was located safe after 4:30 p.m. around 74th Street and Roosevelt Avenue, not far from the supermarket where she was last seen. Police sources told NBC New York that she and a man were found in transit, and the man is now in custody.
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The girl appeared stunned but in good spirits on the shoulders of a police officer, as seen from aerial footage moments after her recovery.
One witness was shocked to learn the man and child she had seen earlier at Travers Park were wanted by police.
"He was at Travers Park. He was playing in the swing and he was going down the slide," said Florine D’Souza, who assumed the man was her grandfather.
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Law enforcement sources said the man knows the girl's mother and she allowed the man to take her to the park. But when the mother did not hear back from the two and could not find them at the park, she reported her daughter missing to police around 1 p.m.
Upon hearing the news that the girl was safe and sound, her grandmother broke down in tears.
It was not unknown whether the man would face any charges, but by Tuesday evening he remained in police custody.
