Charlotte Sena: Missing girl found using fingerprints on ransom note

A missing girl has been found safe after police used fingerprints left on a ransom note to track her down.

Charlotte Sena, 9, disappeared on Saturday while riding her bicycle in New York state, triggering a huge 48-hour search by hundreds of people.

A ransom note was later delivered to the family home, and officials said it contained the suspect's fingerprints.

Police then identified the suspect as the print was on their database linked to a drink-driving incident from 1999.

He was located at a property owned by his mother and arrested.

"After some resistance, the suspect was taken into custody and immediately the little girl was found in a cabinet," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said at a news conference on Monday night. "She knew she was being rescued. She knew that she was in safe hands.

"What happened was extraordinary," she said.

The governor named the suspect as Craig Nelson Ross Jr, 47 and said he was still being questioned. Police said the investigation was still active.

Charlotte's family were on a camping trip when she went missing on Saturday in a wooded area of Moreau Lake State Park, a popular site about 45 miles (72km) north of Albany.

It was "every parent's worst nightmare", Gov Hochul said, adding that she had received anxious phone calls from around the country during the hunt.

After Charlotte's disappearance, a ransom note was dropped through the letterbox of her family home in the early hours of Monday. Police who were monitoring the building collected it and identified the fingerprints.

The investigation was further assisted by mobile phone data and park visitor records, Gov Hochul told CNN.

Charlotte is "safe and in good health", officers said, but had been taken to hospital as a precuationary measure.

Charlotte may have experienced "immense" trauma, commented Callahan Walsh from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, speaking to the BBC's US partner CBS.

During the hunt, police said 400 search and rescue personnel from law enforcement agencies such as the FBI were involved, along with volunteer fire departments and private groups.

Issuing an amber alert for a missing child, they asked for the public's help in locating the "bright and adventurous girl who loves to be outside".

Charlotte's aunt appealed for information via TikTok, and a man who knew the family voiced his shock to the New York Times, saying the Senas were "wonderful, wonderful people".

The search operation unfolded over a distance of nearly 50 miles (80km), police said. The park was closed off as state troopers set up nearby road checkpoints and reportedly asked some drivers to allow their cars to be searched.

The FBI have also been assisting with the case, Gov Hochul said.