Cops Rescue 6-Year-Old Kidnapped by Stranger

A 6-year-old girl snatched from a Kentucky street by a stranger was rescued within 30 minutes thanks to police and an alert witness. Two Louisville Metro Police officers located the suspect's vehicle last Friday after a witness who started following the car gave them part of the license plate number, CNN reports. Body camera footage released by police shows Sergeant Joe Keeling ordering the suspect to get on the ground and Officer Jason Burba lifting the crying girl from the suspect's vehicle as she says, "I want my Daddy." Police say the suspect, Robby Wildt, told officers he saw the girl "playing outside near the street" around 5:40pm, "circled the block, and then took her from the side of the road." Police say the girl was uninjured.

The arrest citation states that Wildt told officers that "as the victim cried in the front of his car, he tried to console her before deciding he knew what he was doing was wrong, and he began to drive back to the location he took her from, afraid he may hurt her." The 40-year-old has been charged with one count of kidnapping a minor, with bail set at $1 million. He faces up to 20 years if convicted. Police spokeswoman Beth Ruoff says it was a rare situation, but it should be an "educational opportunity for parents to remind their children that 'stranger danger' is real," the Louisville Courier-Journal reports. Keeling told a local radio station that the feeling of relief when the girl was taken out of the car was "overwhelming." (More Kentucky stories.)