A second person was arrested in connection with the disappearance of a 4-year-old girl in Oklahoma, authorities announced Friday.
Ivon Adams, 36, was taken into custody in Arizona. Jail records in Maricopa County show that he was booked Thursday on a fugitive from justice charge. He is awaiting extradition to Oklahoma, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation said in a Facebook post.
His arrest comes a day after the agency announced that Alysia Adams, 31, had been taken into custody. They are both described as caregivers for Athena Brownfield, who was reported missing Tuesday after a postal worker found her 5-year-old sister wandering alone in Cyril, Oklahoma.
Alysia Adams was arrested by the Grady County Sheriff’s Office on two counts of child neglect, the state bureau said. The agency said Thursday that Athena’s sister was found outside Alysia Adams’ home.
The girl is in state protective custody and did not require medical care when she was found, agency spokesperson Brook Arbeitman said.
Earlier this week, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol issued a missing endangered person alert for Athena that was sent to residents within a 15-mile radius of Cyril.
The agency did not issue an AMBER alert, an emergency alert for kidnapped children that reaches a nationwide network, “because there was no indication of an abduction,” an agency spokesperson said.
“This case did not meet the criteria in this particular guideline for issuing an AMBER alert,” Sarah Stewart said in an email Friday.
Penny Brownfield, Athena’s paternal grandmother, said the little girl’s disappearance has been “quite a blow.”
“I’ve just got to be strong for my children,” she said byphone Friday from her home in Lawton, Oklahoma. “It’s affecting my children. It’s really affecting my oldest son, which those are his babies, which means those are my babies, too.”
She said she was desperate for any information about Athena’s whereabouts. “She’s not just going to vanish,” she said.
Trash service in Cyril, a town about 80 miles southwest of Oklahoma City, has been postponed as investigators continue their search for Athena.
Arbeitman said Thursday night that officials remain optimistic.
“We’re just digging for every clue, processing everything that we can to see if it can help us locate her,” she said.
Residents with information or security camera video that could help in the search are asked to contact the police.
Athena was last known to be wearing a pink butterfly sweater and pink pants, according to a missing person poster. Arbeitman said she has “limited verbal skills.”
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This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
