Police in Florida say a that a man interrupted during a sex for money exchange kidnapped the woman's one-year-old daughter before abandoning the child in a field.
The Volusia County Sheriff's Office launched an all-out search early Saturday morning -- including the Child Abduction Response Team, bloodhounds, police helicopter, and a boat -- before finding young Lupita Gonzalez around 3:20 p.m. on Saturday, alive and covered by brush, public information officer Gary Davidson said in a statement.
Authorities say that the accused abductor, 23-year-old Carlos Rivera, paid Leah Wiley, Gonalez's mother, for sex while they were at a party on Thursday night, but when Wiley left before completing the act, an infuriated Rivera kidnapped the woman's child, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reports.
Rivera reportedly held Gonzalez for approximately 22 hours before becoming nervous and abandoning the child in a field, according to the The Florida Times-Union.
Wiley told authorities that she suspected Rivera was responsible for her child's disappearance, but failed to report the incident in fear of the girl's father discovering Wiley and Rivera's intimate relations.
Around 4:42 a.m. Saturday, authorities received a call from Rivera, who filed a missing child report and told police that he remembered a little girl at the party but "he [didn't] know what happened to her," according to the police statement.
Rivera is charged with child abuse and kidnapping, as well as several other charges. He is being held at the Volusia County Branch Jail without bail.
Wiley is charged with engaging in an act that could lead to the physical or mental injury of a child. She is being held on $1,500 bail at the Volusia County Branch Jail. Wiley's three children, including Lupita, have been taken into custody by the Department of Children & Families, according to police.
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