DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — A missing 1-year-old has been found safe after he was abducted in a stolen SUV early Wednesday morning.
Blaise Barnett was found at a home near the police station in Clarkston around 3 p.m. Thursday. A woman told police she found the baby inside her car. She brought him inside and called 911.
Family members said someone jumped in their vehicle, which was parked outside the family’s apartment in Clarkston, around 1 a.m. and drove off with the baby still inside.
The SUV was found Wednesday afternoon, but Blaise was nowhere to be found.
James Dent told Channel 2′s Tom Regan that his heart sank, learning that Blaise was not in the back seat of his parents SUV.
[PHOTOS: Blaise Barnett: 1-year-old still missing in Amber Alert]
Dent said he was the one who saw the SUV and spotted a man running away from it moments later.
“He ran up the hill at this plaza. By that time I had called police,” Dent said.
Police questioned the man but determined he was not connected to the stolen SUV and kidnapping of the 1-year-old.
[READ: ‘Just bring him home’: Mother pleads for safe return of 1-year-old Blaise Barnett]
The missing child’s grandmother, Tanithia Miller, led a search of the area with dozens of family relatives and friends.
“This is where they found the truck. This is where we are searching for my grand baby,” Miller told Regan. “We need to know what is going on with my baby.”
The child’s parents left in him the vehicle while unloading groceries into their apartment late Tuesday night.
The SUV was unlocked and the keys in the cup holder. That when they said someone jumped and drove off with the baby.
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“I ran downstairs and I said, ‘No! No not my baby!’ He wasn’t there. I was devastated,” mother Deonna Bray said.
The mother is now pleading for the safe return of her baby.
“Don’t put him out on the street. Don’t do that. Please don’t do that,” Bray said.
Police issued an Amber Alert and messages about the kidnapped child have lit up highway signs across the state.
“It is the Clarkston Police Department’s top priority to find Blaise. We don’t have anything further than to say he is still missing,” said Sgt. Dustin Bulcher with the Clarkston Police Department.
If you see the child, you’re asked to call Clarkston police at 404-557-8956.