Missing 4-Year-Old Girl Is Rescued From Inside A Car In The Woods

Oct 20, 2019 by apost team

Heidi Renae Todd, a frightened 4-year-old girl, was sitting in a car that had been driven deep into the woods in Riverside, Ala., when Rick Oliver, that community's police chief, tentatively approached it and discovered her next to someone who appeared to be sleeping. He immediately confronted the startled man, who quickly allowed him to take the girl and sped off, leaving physical and mental havoc behind.

This ordeal started 400 miles to the east, in Johns Island, S.C. The first sign of trouble occurred when the girl's mother did not pick up two of her daughters from school. Administrators there were immediately alarmed and contacted police, who sped to her house to see what they might be able to learn there. Unfortunately, the scene that awaited them was troubling. Her mother was badly beaten, and the girl had been kidnapped. This all happened when her father was training out of the area with the Coast Guard.

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As her mother was rushed to the hospital for surgery, the search was on for the girl. However, it was unsuccessful as the kidnapper had quickly escaped the area and headed west. But a pair of Norfolk Southern Railway employees inadvertently ended the search when they noticed a car had been parked nearby in a wooded area that was not near any roads. They contacted police. That's when Oliver entered the picture and saved the girl although, at the time, he had no idea who she was according to Al.com.

Now that the girl was safe, the focus turned towards capturing the kidnapper, and, fortunately, that did not last long. However, it did involve another crossing of a state border as he was finally apprehended in Mississippi. It turned out that he was a felon who had been released from prison weeks earlier.

Back in Johns Island and throughout the Charleston area, relief reigned as the girl was returned home. Meanwhile, in Riverside, Oliver said that finding her was the highlight of his decades-long career in law enforcement. "The good Lord put me in that place," he said to Al.com. It's unknown if the criminal had any connection with this family or if the crime was not targeted at them specifically and was more of a case of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

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