A young girl has been found hidden away inside a secret room underneath a staircase more than two years after she went missing.
Paislee Shultis, six, was abducted by her parents in 2019 when she was just four, after they lost custody of her.
She has been missing since she vanished from the home of her legal guardian in New York, with her parents hiding her from the police, The Mirror reports.
Investigators at the time suspected her biological parents, Kimberly Cooper, 33, and Kirk Shultis Jr, 32, and on February 14 police in Saugerties, upstate New York got a tip that she was with the couple.
Officers searched a property and spoke with the residents, including Kirk Shultis Jr, and his father Shultis Sr, 57.
Shultis Jr told police had had no idea where his daughter Paislee was, according to police.
But during a search 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", according to a statement released on Tuesday.
He shone a flashlight into the stairs and that is when detectives saw a pair of tiny feet.
Officers removed several steps and found the child and her mother Kimberly Cooper were hidden in a makeshift room secreted behind the stairs.
"The child was located secreted in a makeshift room, under a closed staircase leading to the basement of the residence," Saugerties Police said in a statement.
"Upon removing the step boards, the child and her abductor, Kimberly Cooper were found hiding in the dark and wet enclosure."
Police took the child to the Saugerties Police Department headquarters where she was assessed by medics and returned to her legal guardian.
Cooper, Shultis, and his father, Kirk Shultis Sr, 57, were all arrested and charged with felony custodial interference and endangering the welfare of a child.
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