A man accused of kidnapping a 5-year-old girl from Kingman, Ariz., was arrested as he worked on a motorcycle in the garage of an Aurora home.
Authorities said Virgil Kosmicki, 45, abducted his former stepdaughter, Jade Dunn, and demanded 2 ounces of methamphetamine for her return.
Jade’s family first told investigators that Kosmicki asked for the drugs, then retracted that story and said he had demanded money, said Deborah McCarley, special agent with the FBI in Phoenix. “Then it was (he) just wanted the mother to come to him and knew she would come if (he) had the child,” McCarley said.
An FBI analyst located the child after running data about the case into a computer, McCarley said. “This analyst saw patterns in some of the data and was able to pinpoint where the child was.”
The Mohave County, Ariz., sheriff’s department and FBI contacted Aurora police and asked them to look for Kosmicki at the home.
“We saw him in the garage and determined it was him,” said Aurora police spokesman Marcus Dudley. “The little girl was there and unharmed. It was not so simple for him — he was in possession” of meth.
Kosmicki was arrested in the 3300 block of South Dunkirk Way and is being held in the Arapahoe County jail, Dudley said.
Kosmicki is being held on a drug charge and will be turned over to the FBI and extradited to Arizona. Others at the Aurora residence were apparently unaware there was a warrant for his arrest, Dudley said.
Jade was returned to her mother and family in Kingman on Wednesday, 13 days after she was taken.
The girl’s mother, Jennifer Dunn, contacted authorities in Mohave County on Sept. 6, informing them that her daughter was taken from her school by Patricia Sanford, a family acquaintance.
Sanford was on a contact list of those to whom the school could release the child, but she was not authorized or expected to pick her up on that date.
On Sept. 16, Sanford contacted the victim’s grandmother and told her that Jade had been taken out of Arizona.
Sanford then began to relay messages to the grandmother from Kosmicki.
Authorities did not disclose why Kosmicki brought the girl to Colorado or at whose residence he was found.
Sanford has not been arrested. The investigation is still underway and charges could be filed later, said McCarley.
Despite the previous relationship between Kosmicki and the victim’s mother, he had no legal rights to be in custody of Jade, authorities said.
“Child crimes have a very special place in our hearts, as children are truly the ‘innocent,’ ” Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said. “We are more than happy to assist, and we are grateful that our efforts, albeit minimal, have assisted in returning a child home.”
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at (303)954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
