GREENSBORO, N.C. – A heartwarming video posted to Facebook Thursday night shows Ahlora Ashanti Sample Lindiment’s stepmom welcoming home the 3-year-old who was kidnapped earlier in the week.
“Mommy, I want to go home,” Ahlora says in the video, which was taken at the hospital.
Ahlora was reported abducted at 6:33 p.m. Wednesday from 2411 Phillips Ave., near Claremont Homes Apartments. At 8:18 p.m. Thursday, Greensboro police received a call on the tip line that a girl, believed to be Ahlora, was at the Words of Faith Christian Center on Dillard Street.
Officers came to the center and took the child to the hospital to get checked out, and she was positively identified as Ahlora. The suspect has not been located, according to WGHP.
“I’m just so glad my baby was found,” stepmom Shaye Wallace said in the video.
Wallace also thanked the public for helping look for Ahlora and called the authorities “awesome” and “phenomenal.”
Police said Ahlora was playing at a playground near an apartment complex and the suspect was around that playground and interacted with multiple adults and children.
“[The suspect] interacted with some adults, she interacted with multiple children in what was defined as a suspicious way,” Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Scott said at a Thursday afternoon news conference.
Scott said Ahlora was seen leaving the playground with the suspect.
“The suspect is still at large, and we would ask the community to continue to help us,” Scott said. “The obvious thing is for us to find the individual, determine what was the motive, what were the issues, and take our appropriate up to and including any charges that may be relevant. We obviously want to try and find this individual and get them off street so we don’t have a similar issue to occur.”
Scott said Ahlora “seems to be doing well for a 3-year-old.”
“As the next day or so unfolds we will do what’s called a forensic interview where we bring in a specially-trained police officer that will be able to communicate with her better than the average individual and try to determine what’s happened over the last 30 hours.”
