By Alfred Charles, WRAL.com managing editor
Lumberton, N.C. — The green SUV that was stolen earlier this week during the kidnapping of a 13-year-old Lumberton girl was found Thursday, but the search for Hania Noelia Aguilar continued into the night.
Investigators were going door to door along Quincey Drive, talking to residents to seek clues to the girl’s whereabouts.
Aguilar, an eighth grader at Lumberton Junior High School, was abducted Monday by a man dressed in black and wearing a yellow bandana while she was standing outside her family’s home in the Rosewood Mobile Home Park located at 3525 E. Elizabethtown Road.
Lumberton Police Chief Michael McNeil and the FBI said the stolen vehicle was found Thursday shortly before 8 a.m. off Quincey Drive in Lumberton. The FBI’s Evidence Response Team was set to process the vehicle for evidence, investigators said.
“Someone called 911 and said they saw the vehicle backed up in the woods,” McNeil said during an impromptu press conference. “We immediately secured the scene. There is an incredible amount of investigative work going on to find Hania. That’s our main goal right now.”
“We’re also hoping that we can possibly obtain forensic information regarding the driver of the SUV,” FBI Agent Andy DeLarocha said.
Federal investigators asked that anyone who lives or operates a business in the area and may have a video surveillance camera system call the FBI’s tip line at 910-272-5871.
The FBI also released surveillance video showing what appears to be a man walking in the area where the girl was taken.
Investigators said the man was walking south on Lambeth Street before turning north on NC Highway 41 towards the mobile home park where the girl lived with her family. Anyone who saw the person was asked to call the tip line.
“The foot traffic at that time of the day was actually very light, and this is actually the only individual we saw out walking at that time of day in this part of the neighborhood,” DeLarocha said.
Investigators say finding the SUV is a major break, although the search for Aguilar continues.
“This is one piece that’s going to lead up, hopefully, to the rest of the puzzle,” DeLarocha said. ...”
“Hania is a teenager, calm, she is humble. A happy teenager,” Father Giovanni Romero said of the 13-year-old.
Aguilar is a member of the confirmation class at St. Andrews and her absence from Wednesday’s weekly mass was tough on the other children.
“Most of the girls her age were really affected. When we came to mass, they have two hours of class and then we come to mass, so whenever they come into mass, everybody was just talking about it,” Romero said. “It was really tough because some of the children, they just had to leave.”
Romero said the parish and community are keeping Aguilar’s family in prayer, which is now their source of strength. ...”
https://www.wral.com/suv-found-hunt-for-missing-lumberton-girl-stretches-into-the-night/17979101/
Must get some sleep (0313 here).. prayers she is found asap.