A six-year-old girl missing for two years has been found in a “small cold and wet” secret room under a staircase in New York state.
Paislee Shultis’s biological parents allegedly kidnapped her after losing custody in 2019 and concealed her from the outside world at her grandfather’s home in Saugerties 150 miles away.
When police visited after a tip-off she was being held there, a detective with a torch spotted a piece of blanket poking through the cracks in the staircase after a search for “a little over an hour”.
“Detectives used a tool to remove several of the wooden steps and that is when detectives saw a pair of tiny feet,” police said. “After removing several more steps, the child and her abductor were discovered within.”
Police say the girl appeared to be in good health.
Joseph Sinagra, the police chief in Saugerties, told local newspaper the Daily Freeman that police had previously been to the home “a number of times” while responding to leads after her parents were suspected of taking her when she disappeared aged four from Spencer, New York.
“Our belief is that at times when we went into the residence, although we were given limited access, they were using this location to hide the child,” he said.
The girl’s parents, Kimberly Cooper, 33, and Kirk Shultis, Jr, 32 and grandfather Kirk Shultis Sr, 57, were arrested and charged with felony custodial interference and endangering the welfare of a child.
