An Amber Alert that was issued throughout California for two children, allegedly abducted by their parents in Nevada, was deactivated when the children were recovered safely in Sacramento, police announced early Saturday.
Lillyanna Ramirez, 9, and Martin Angel Rosales, 3, went missing Wednesday from Elko, Nev., a city of about 19,000 in the northeast corner of the state (map). Both were in custody of child welfare services at the time of the abduction.
The children were with their non-custodial mother, Amber Schenck, 29, when police located them in Sacramento about 2 a.m., Elko Police Capt. Will Lehmann said.
California’s Child Protective Services took custody of the children, and they will be transported back to Nevada, where civil proceedings will determine whether criminal charges should be filed against Schenck, Lehmann said.
Police were still looking for the biological father of the 3-year-old boy, Martin Cisneras Rosales, 33, who is said to have "violent tendencies when dealing with police," officials said. A restraining order keeping him away from his son was issued July 26, 2013, according to an Amber Alert published online.
Nevada authorities said Friday they believed the children were "in danger of serious bodily injury or death."
Anyone who sees Rosales was told not to approach him, but instead call 911. Police believe he may be in the Sacramento area.
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Rosales may be driving a 1980s- or 1990s-model blue Ford Mustang that may have a Nebraska license plate or paper plates.
Details regarding exactly where the children were found were not immediately available, and no arrests had been made as of Saturday morning.
The Amber Alert spanned California from Sacramento, where the family was last seen before the alert, to Mexico, where authorities thought the parents were taking their children.
It came in the wake of a high-profile kidnapping case in San Diego that prompted California to issue its first statewide Amber Alert to cellphones.
NBC4 viewers reported seeing an alert about Lillyanna and Martin on their televisions Friday evening, but did not receive a notification on their cellphones, like when a 16-year-old girl from San Diego went missing last week.
Authorites told NBC4 that Friday's Amber Alert is a regional one and that the cellphone alerts are only deployed statewide.
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