Hundreds helped search for girl found safe after abduction; suspect arrested

The mother of a 7-year-old girl is thankful for everybody who had a hand in finding her daughter, after authorities said she was abducted by a stranger Wednesday, Jan. 21, in central Minnesota.

“I am so glad to be back with her,” Mikailah Nelson told the Minnesota Star Tribune in a brief phone call Thursday.

Hundreds of volunteers in and around Zimmerman turned out in near-zero-degree weather to look for the girl, who was last seen about 3:55 p.m. Wednesday as she got off a school bus in the 26000 block of W. 13th Street in Zimmerman, 40 miles northwest of Minneapolis.

The girl was found hours later in a pickup truck near Albert Lea, Minn., and a man driving the pickup was arrested, said Sherburne County Sheriff Cmdr. Ben Zawacki.

Zawacki called the girl’s disappearance “a stranger abduction,” but also said that there was a “social media” tie. He did not elaborate, saying that is part of the investigation.

The 28-year-old suspect, from International Falls, Minn., was arrested and booked into the Freeborn County jail on suspicion of kidnapping, according to Albert Lea police and county jail records.

The Star Tribune is not naming the suspect until charges are filed.

They also got help from the more than 700 people who turned out to search for the girl. At one point, the Sheriff’s Office had to ask people to stop coming because there were so many.

Authorities delayed issuing an Amber Alert to keep from tipping off the suspect, whom they zeroed in on as they pieced things together. Once they had a general location of the suspect’s whereabouts, they issued the alert, which pinged phones shortly before midnight.

Officers in the Albert Lea area spotted the man’s white Dodge Ram pickup about 1 a.m. and stopped it. The girl was found safe inside and taken to a hospital before being reunited with her family, Zawacki said.

Zawacki credited the diligent work by law enforcement, investigators and volunteers for the happy ending. Without them, “I don’t believe we would have … this outcome,” he said.

Minnesota has issued around 50 Amber Alerts since 2002.

Wetterling said she couldn’t sleep after seeing the Amber Alert on Wednesday night.

“I was wide awake and my heart was pounding,” she said Thursday. “It’s just a nightmare to go through, and with the weather and [her being] so little, there were just a lot of things that were scary. I was awake for quite a while and am so happy to hear the results.”

The suspect has only a minor criminal record, said Drew Evans, superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

However, in International Falls, in northern Minnesota, a family who used the suspect as a babysitter filed for and was granted a harassment restraining order in August 2025, according to court records filed in Koochiching County.

In the petition, the father says the suspect touched one of the children while in a swimming pool. The father also said the suspect forced his daughter to sleep with him in his camper.

The suspect denied the allegations, according to a letter filed in Koochiching County District Court.

The order was ultimately dismissed with the condition that the suspect have no contact with the children and their father, and that he stays at least 1 mile from the children’s home. The conditions are in place until Sept. 22, 2026, court documents show.

Evans on Thursday called the suspect an “evil individual.”

“This is every family’s worst nightmare,” Evans said during a news conference. He commended law enforcement and community members “who dropped what they were doing” to join the search.

“We put ourselves in their shoes,” said Big Lake resident Maddie Neumann, 32, who went to help search with her boyfriend. “It was a very short discussion. He looks at me and goes, ‘Do you want to go?’ And I turned off the TV and in the next 10 minutes, we were dressed for the cold. If my kids were missing, I’d want someone to do the same.”

“The roads were crawling. Everybody was showing up to help,” Neumann said.

Volunteers waited in the school’s gymnasium while police dogs scoured the area and helicopters used thermal technology to look for people in a wooded area. Then, volunteers lined up shoulder to shoulder, ready to search the woods. Before Neumann took a step, she heard “hooting and hollering.”

Authorities had announced the girl was found alive.

“Everybody was just overjoyed,” said Champlin resident Jon Newcomb, a former paramedic who joined the search party. “There was probably five seconds of cheering and people were crying.”

Newcomb, a parent of three, has a son the same age as the girl who was missing.

Evans implored parents to tell their children to not get into a vehicle with nonfamily members — known or unknown — unless they have been given specific instructions to do so.

“Luckily we have a child that is alive,” Evans said. “This reinforces, unless a parent specifically tells a child to go with that person, do not get in a vehicle with that person.”

The County Attorney’s Office said it will review information in developing charges.