SYRACUSE, New York (AP) -- A 5-year-old girl was found bound in duct tape under a tarp at an abandoned warehouse Sunday, a day after she left home to visit a friend two blocks away.
A potential buyer of the warehouse in suburban DeWitt found the girl after he heard her crying and looked under the tarp. She was reported in stable condition at University Hospital, and gave authorities a description of her abductor, whom police were searching for Sunday night.
Police would not say Sunday whether the girl had been abused.
The girl's mother told police her daughter left their Syracuse home at 6 p.m. Saturday to visit her friend. The mother called the friend's house to see if the girl arrived safely and called police when she learned she hadn't.
A child found the girl's scooter on a nearby storm grate half an hour after she left home.
A state police helicopter searched the area with an infrared camera, police and neighbors combed nearby Schiller Park and fire department divers searched for the girl in the storm drain where the scooter was found.
Authorities alerted nearby residents but did not issue an Amber Alert because the disappearance was not known to be an abduction.
Police were looking for a thin white or Hispanic man in his 40s. The suspect is balding and had a mustache, police said. Investigators believe the suspect kidnapped the girl in a white older model four-door vehicle with a dirty gray interior.
