COLUMBUS, Ohio — A man was charged with kidnapping after a 5-year-old girl reported missing from a Fairfield County home early Monday morning was later found in his vehicle in Kentucky, according to an affidavit.
Fairfield County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to the 7200 block of Pleasantville Road Northeast in Richland Township just before 6 a.m. on a report of a missing child.
According to the affidavit, firefighters and medics were already at the location when deputies arrived due to a fire that happened at the house roughly 30 minutes earlier. Deputies spoke to the father of the missing girl who said she was last seen the night before when she went to bed.
Sheriff Alex Lape told 10TV's Lacey Crisp that the situation is unique and highly peculiar.
"This is a unique situation in the fact that typically to have an abduction and a house fire at the same location is highly peculiar. It immediately creates a whole lot of different red flags within your mind when you're starting to look at this, and as we start taking some of the information that we get and parceling it out," Lape said.
The affidavit says the father was awakened earlier that morning by another adult in the home who had seen an active fire and was “trying to extinguish it in a panic.”
The father told deputies the following people were in the home when he went to bed the night before: his girlfriend, a male friend and 38-year-old John Clayton Edward Beckman, who he said was an acquaintance, according to court documents.
Deputies were told that Beckman had no relationship with the missing girl and had no reason to have care or custody over the child, records say.
Deputies began a search for the missing 5-year-old, including trying to ping a phone number associated with Beckman.
More than four hours later, Kentucky State Police informed deputies that they found Beckman’s vehicle on Interstate 65 near Elizabethtown, Kentucky. After they stopped the vehicle, police reportedly located the girl inside.
Authorities are still investigating the circumstances of the house fire and the condition of the girl.