A woman is in custody and a toddler is missing from Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, after the child’s father said a rideshare driver abducted his daughter on Saturday evening, according to police documents and a news release.
Paul Johnson said he was riding in a car with Lyft and Uber stickers with his daughter and a friend, according to a criminal complaint filed by the Allegheny County police.
Johnson said that when he got out of the car and went to get his daughter out of the car seat, the driver drove away with the toddler, the complaint said. The complaint didn’t identify the child, but a police news release said she is named Nalani.
Johnson told detectives he tried calling the driver’s cellphone multiple times but she never picked up, so he called 911 around 5 p.m. ET.
Police arrested driver Sharena Nancy, 25, in the vehicle during a traffic stop around 7:30 p.m. ET, but did not find the child inside, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, Nancy told detectives that Johnson sold the child to an individual for $10,000 and asked her to complete the dropoff.
Nancy said he showed her a photo of a black woman she was supposed to meet and asked her to drive the toddler “20 minutes” from a gas station in Monroeville along US Route 22 to meet the woman, the complaint says.