An Amber Alert was issued on Sunday morning for Maleah Davis, a Houston girl who underwent brain surgery last month. She was last seen wearing a pink bow in her hair, a light blue zip-up jacket, blue jeans, and sneakers, police said.
Police are asking the public for help in finding the girl, who was last seen on Friday night when, according to what her stepfather Darion Vence, 26, told police, three mystery men beat him up and briefly held him and her 2-year-old brother hostage. He later told police that they dumped him and the toddler on the side of the road and absconded with Maleah.
Sgt. Mark Holbrook of the Houston Police Department Homicide Division said Vence said that he went in and out of consciousness during the ordeal and, at one point, woke up to find the suspects driving him and the two children around in what he described as a blue pickup truck.
Vence told police that he eventually regained full consciousness around 6 p.m. on Saturday, waking up on the side of a road in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land with his toddler unharmed near his side.
But Maleah was nowhere to be found, Vence told police.
Holbrook said there is about a 21-hour gap between the alleged assault and when he woke up on the side of the road that Vence doesn't remember.
"We'd love the public to help us so we can fill in the blanks in this story. I realize there are a lot of blanks in that story, but we're hoping the public can fill in the blanks," Holbrook said during a news conference Sunday afternoon.
Holbrook declined to say if police are suspicious of Vence's story. But he noted that investigators have not found any evidence, including security video or independent witnesses, to corroborate the stepfather's story.
Amber Alert issued after 5-year-old girl allegedly abducted by 3 carjackers: Police
