Girl, 4, abducted by her parents in 2019 after they lost custody is found ALIVE in secret makeshift room underneath staircase in Upstate NY home: Parents and grandfather are arrested
- Paislee Shultis went missing in 2019; it was feared at the time her biological parents Kimberly Cooper and Kirk Shultis had snatched her
- She was living with an unidentified legal guardian after the couple lost custody
- On Monday, Saugerties Police received a tip that Paislee was at her paternal grandfather’s house with her parents
- Cops found her hiding in the ‘dark, wet’ room under the stairs with her mother
- The mother, father and grandfather were charged with child endangerment and custody interference
- The father and grandfather were released on bond on Tuesday, however
- Paislee is in good health and is now back with her legal guardian and older sister
Paislee Shultis was abducted aged four in 2019. She is now six
A four-year-old girl who was abducted by her parents after they lost custody of her in 2019 has been found alive in their home in a hovel-like makeshift room beneath the stairs.
Paislee Shultis was abducted from her guardians in 2019 when she was four, from the home of her legal guardian in Cayuga Heights, New York.
She had been removed from the care of her biological parents, Kim Cooper and Kirk Cultis.
It’s unclear why they lost custody but they took her back and for the last three years, have been hiding from law enforcement.
But on Monday, police in Saugerties, upstate New York, received a tip that the girl was with the couple at a home.
She was found hiding in a dark, wet room underneath the staircase.
The house is 162 miles from where she was abducted in 2019.
This is the makeshift room under the stairs where Paislee Shultis was found living in her paternal grandfather’s home on Monday night
Cops flashed a light over the staircase and were able to see a dirty blanket from behind the staircase
Kirk Shultis, left, and Kim Cooper, right, were taken into custody but Kirk has now been bonded out
Cooper, Shultis and Shultis’ father have been arrested but Shultis and his father were released on bond on Tuesday morning.
Cooper is still behind bars in the Ulster County Jail but the father and grandfather – who were charged with endangering the welfare of a child and custody interference – have been released.
Cooper is being held on an additional count from family court but it is unclear what that charge is.
None have been charged with kidnapping.
This is the family home in Saugerties, New York, where the family was living
There is a child’s play structure on the property where the girl had been living in secret for three years
The home in Saugerties, New York, where the girl was found on Monday night after an anonymous tip
It is unclear who the child was living with when she was abducted in 2019.
In a statement on Tuesday, it was revealed that Saugerties Detective Erik Thiele ‘noticed something about the staircase leading from the back of the residence into the basement of the house that caught his attention’.
He shone a flashlight into the stairs and that is when detectives saw a pair of tiny feet.
‘After removing several more steps, the child and her abductor were discovered within,’ a police spokesperson said.
It’s unclear who reported the family to the police, or how long they knew the child had been there.
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