Heard in the Hall

Kidnapping reward up to $30,000 for info about girl's abduction

Police report "no specific suspects" in last week's abduction of a 5-year-old from her West Philadelphia elementary school.

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Kidnapping reward up to $30,000 for info about girl's abduction

POSTED: Thursday, January 24, 2013, 5:39 PM

BOB WARNER

The reward is up to $30,000 for information about the kidnapping of a 5-year-old girl from a West Philadelphia elementary school.

Mayor Nutter announced the reward increase Thursday, as police reported they have no specific suspects at present, despite ten days of intensive investigation after Na’illa Robinson was taken from the Bryant Elementary School at 60^th and Cedar Avenue on Monday, Jan. 14.

Based on interviews with the young girl, police believe that the woman who abducted her, posing as her mother, walked to a house somewhere near the school. A man was inside, according to police, who said the suspects blindfolded the girl and forced her to hide under a bed.

The victim was found at 4:40 a.m. the next morning, clad only in an adult T-shirt, under a playground slide near 69^th Street and Patterson Avenue.

“Think about a young child taken from school, held overnight, having no idea where she was," Nutter told reporters. We subsequently found her in a playground, in the cold, with hardly any clothes on, frightened, scared, …shivering…. That is a traumatic experience. No one deserves that, and not a child. We need folks to step up….It happened to this child. We cannot allow it to happen again. We must find these individuals, [reward] money or not. Step up, give us some information….”

Capt. John Darby, head of the Philadelphia police Special Victims Unit, said enhanced video showed the girl's abductor clad in a Muslim-style niqab, with a veil revealing only her eyes. The woman and the 5-year-old left the school on Hazel Street, went west to 61^st street, then north to Larchwood, where they turned, headed toward 62^nd Street.

“If you were out there and you saw these two folks together like that, just give us the information,” Nutter pleaded. “You may have seen only five seconds worth, that’s another five seconds worth of information on path and direction that we need to piece this thing together, to narrow in on what possibly happened here.”

An earlier $10,000 reward is being given to the man who found the young girl on the Upper Darby playground, Nutter said. The current offer includes $5,000 from the Fraternal Order of Police, $5,000 from the Citizens Crime Comission, $10,000 from the NAACP and $10,000 from the city.

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Comments (3)

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 6:03 PM, 01/24/2013

Family knows something..

— Ben Fan

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 9:31 PM, 01/24/2013

It is the Father and other members of her "Complicated Family".
Where do I pick up my money??

— poogie

0 like this / 0 don't • Posted 12:46 AM, 01/25/2013

Why hasn't philly.com reported about another out of control teacher reprimanding and humiliating a young female student because she brought a PAPER gun into school? It's funny we hear every gun story to drum up fear and anger but another instance of an out of control teacher is being suppressed.

— Phillies2008WSChamps