Atlanta police officers rescued two young sisters from a locked trailer on Monday afternoon, finding them with their babysitter who has since been arrested and charged with kidnapping.
The children, 4-year-old Zola Cooper and her 11-month-old sister Norah Cooper, were reported missing by their mother on Saturday night. Authorities located the girls in a sweltering trailer within an apartment complex after hearing a baby crying.
Body camera footage released by the Atlanta Police Department shows officers breaking into the trailer with a cinder block and bolt cutters. Inside, they found the children with 42-year-old Lakesha Brown. According to an arrest warrant, the temperature inside the trailer was 97 degrees Fahrenheit, and it lacked air conditioning.
Despite the conditions, both children were found to be in good health and were reunited with their mother. Brown was arrested and charged with two counts of kidnapping and two counts of first-degree cruelty to children.
Following her arrest in Atlanta, authorities discovered that Brown had an active warrant in Alabama for failing to appear in court on a separate child kidnapping case involving a newborn. While Brown has denied involvement in that 2021 incident, authorities stated she had posted images of the infant on social media.
The girls' mother, Elica Redding, told police she had left her children with Brown, whom she described as a friend, for a dinner outing on Saturday evening. Redding reported the children missing around 10 p.m. when Brown failed to return them and became unreachable by phone. Redding stated that Brown had initially claimed an accident had occurred and that the children were taken to a hospital, but hospital checks yielded no records of the girls.
Redding reported meeting Brown approximately one year prior through a Facebook group for pregnant women, where Brown allegedly offered babysitting services.