An Ohio AMBER Alert has ended in the arrest of 48-year-old Shane Steven Smith, stepfather to 13-year-old Mackenzie Hall. He is facing charges after allegedly attempting to take the child who had last been seen in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday.
Smith was found on Friday evening on the 300 block of Sherman Avenue in Springfield, Ohio. Hall was also found safe in Springfield.
The police told local news station Dayton 24/7 that Smith had originally absconded from the scene, but was apprehended shortly after.
He is facing kidnapping charges, and more charges may be added at a later date.
Local news station WSYX reported that charging documents for Smith said that Hall’s father reported cameras had shown her leaving a residence shortly after 5 a.m.
The girl’s school bus was not supposed to arrive until 6 a.m. Her father then contacted her school, who had said that she had not arrived.
In charging documents, detectives wrote that a student told a school counselor that the girl’s stepfather was going to pick her up and take her to another state, according to local news outlets.
Local news stations also reported that Smith has two open cases against him, having been indicted on a charge of felonious assault with a firearm in October of 2023, and was indicted again in February of 2024 for possession of drugs.
What is an AMBER Alert?
An AMBER Alert is a nationwide alert system, which is used to notify the public of missing children under the age of 18.
The alerts are broadcast across radio, TV, road signs, cellphones and other data-enabled devices in order to share critical information about missing children, in an effort to find them.
As of last year, 1,200 children were found because of the AMBER Alert system and 180 children were rescued because of the emergency alerts.
The disappearance has to meet certain criteria for an alert to be issued.
There must have been an abduction, the child must be at risk of serious injury or death, and there has to be descriptive information about the child, the suspect or the suspect’s vehicle.
Active AMBER Alerts
There is currently an active AMBER Alert in Tennessee.
Sebastian Rogers, 15, was last seen on February 26.
Rogers went missing from his mother and stepfather’s home in Sumner County. He is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs around 120 pounds. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and he wears glasses. He was last seen wearing black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt.
Anyone with information about Rogers is urged asked to call the Sumner County Emergency Communications Center at 615-451-3838 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI-FIND.
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