TUESDAY UPDATE FROM 9NEWS AND THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: A 4-year-old girl whose abduction by a stranger triggered a statewide Amber Alert was found early today. Police continued to search for her kidnapper.
Police said Diana Gabriella Sanchez, who was snatched from behind her west Denver house Monday evening, wandered into a 7-Eleven store at the intersection of Kentucky and Federal around 1 a.m. today.
A store clerk recognized the girl from the Amber Alert bulletin and called police.
Denver police spokesman Sonny Jackson said the girl had no visible injuries but was taken to
The Children’s Hospital. He did not know anything else about her condition.
Police say Diana didn’t know the man who kidnapped her. He is described as a white man with shoulder-length hair and a mustache who drove off in a red older-model Ford Bronco or reddish/orange Ford Ranger crew cab.
Anyone with information about the abduction is asked to call police.
Check back with DenverPost.com and 9News.com through the day for more on this developing story.
A 4-year-old girl was snatched from behind her house Monday evening, prompting Denver police to issue an Amber Alert.
Diana Gabriella Sanchez was playing with a group of children at about 6:30 p.m. in the 500 block of South Canosa Court when a man in a red SUV drove up, grabbed her and put her in his vehicle. He was last seen driving east on West Center Avenue.
“We’re taking it very seriously,” said police spokesman Sonny Jackson. “It’s not a family situation.”
He said the children Diana had been playing with were not harmed, although they were shaken by what they had seen.
Diana’s mother was inside the family’s home at the time of the abduction.
Arturo Guzman, Diana’s uncle, identified her parents as Jose Sanchez and Erica Angeles. They were very upset Monday night, he said.
One of the children playing with Diana at the time of the abduction was her 7-year-old cousin. The boy told Guzman that a man came up, grabbed Diana, threw her in the seat and drove off.
“He went right in and told the parents,” Guzman said. “They went outside but didn’t see anything.”
“No relative is going to do that,” he said.
Floyd Aguirre lives across the street. His son told him he heard something at about the time of the kidnapping.
Levi Aguirre, 14, was napping in his house at the time. “I heard a little girl scream,” he recalled.
He was worried it was his 5-year-old sister, but then he heard her talking in the next room. He assumed the noise was kids playing and went back to sleep.
But Jackson said the children playing with Diana said that she didn’t make any noise.
“She’s a very caring, very sweet little girl,” Jackson said. “She’ll go with anybody.”
Michelle Baros was watching TV in her living room across the street and said she didn’t hear anything. When police arrived, she was walking outside with her kids to go to a park.
Officials alerted neighbors in a nine-square-block area using reverse 911 calls.
On Monday night, police were searching the neighborhood of neat brick cottages with the assistance of a helicopter.
“We’ve been doing a grid search,” Jackson said, adding, “they will be manning the phones all night long.”
Diana is Hispanic, with straight brown hair and brown eyes. She is about 3 feet tall and weighs 35 pounds. She was wearing a red T-shirt, blue jeans and red shoes.
The suspect is a white man with blue eyes, shoulder-length brown hair and a mustache. He was wearing a gray, long- sleeve T-shirt rolled up to his elbows, blue jeans with the knees ripped out and brown shoes.
He was driving an older red Ford Bronco or Ranger with a topper, silver rims and no back seat.
Anyone with information is asked to call Denver police at 720-913-7867 or 720-913-6911.
Staff writer Jim Kirksey can be reached at 303-820-1448 or jkirksey@denverpost.com.
