(JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ill.) Two Chicago-area residents are among three people who were taken into custody after police safely located a baby girl who’d been kidnapped Friday from her Memphis, Tennessee, home.
Three people took 8-month-old Samiyah Nichols from Memphis about 4:15 a.m. Friday, according to Illinois State Police.
Authorities learned they were in a 2005 Ford 4-door belonging to a relative of the baby that may have crossed into Illinois, a statement from ISP said. A trooper spotted the car about 9:15 a.m. near milepost 103 in Jefferson County.
State police located the vehicle on I-57 in Jefferson County, Illinois. Photo from Illinois State Police.
State troopers and local sheriff’s deputies stopped the car without incident and found the baby girl in the car, police said. She was unhurt, but was taken to a local hospital in good condition for evaluation.
Samuel Nichols, 29, of Chicago, who is believed to be the girl’s biological father is being held in police custody on an unrelated warrant, police said.
Two other people — a 29-year-old man from Homewood, and a 27-year-old woman from Muncie, Indiana — were also arrested but later released. Formal charges are pending against all three in connection with the abduction, according to ISP.
Samiyah was released from the hospital and remains in the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, police said.
