Two young children forcibly taken from their western New York foster home were found Wednesday after authorities tracked a rental car to Alabama and found them on the floor of the backseat, police said.
Police Chief Andrew Forsythe of Greece, New York, said a woman who had been in the car with 5-year-old Dimitri Cash Jr. and his 3-year-old sister Shekeria Cash was taken into custody and being interviewed.
Authorities said the two children were taken from their foster home in a Rochester suburb on Monday night, after two men wearing ski masks broke through a window and tied up a woman and two other children.
The homeowner told police her seven foster children were upstairs when two men broke through a front window. Two children rushed downstairs when she screamed. She held the children and the men wrapped all three of them in duct tape, putting tape over the woman's mouth to keep her from screaming, Forsythe said.
The two men went upstairs and forcibly removed the young children, who were in their pajamas in what Forsythe called a "planned, targeted abduction." They fled in the homeowner's van, eventually ditching the vehicle at a nearby apartment complex.
Forsythe said the investigation found blood evidence, which was processed and led to a local car rental, and the vehicle was tracked to Montgomery, Alabama. Law enforcement observed the woman leaving and conducted a stop, finding the children under a blanket.
Forsythe said the investigation was ongoing and declined to talk about the men accused of doing the break-in.
