DUNNELLON, Fla. – An Amber Alert issued Tuesday for a missing 5-year-old Marion County girl was canceled after the child was found safe in Missouri.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement said Alexandria Alliclaire Green was last seen Saturday in the 10000 block of Southwest 186th Avenue in Dunnellon. She was found Tuesday evening safe at the Harbor Inn and Suites in Hermann, Missouri, deputies said.
She was found with her parents, Alan Green, 55, and Mechealine Mazakis, 47. They are the girl's biological parents, but they do not have custody of her, according to the Marion County Sheriff's Office. The girl's paternal grandparents have had custody of her for about a year, officials said.
Alan Green was arrested on an interference of child custody warrant out of Marion County. Mazakis has not been charged and it's unclear if she will be.
Alexandria is in custody of the Department of Children and Families in Missouri. Officials said they are hoping she will be reunited with her grandparents in Dunnellon before the end of the week.
“We have notified the grandparents and they are extremely happy she was found unhurt,” Sgt. Jerry Bevan said.
Alan Green picked up his daughter Saturday for what was supposed to be a two-hour visit. He never returned the girl to her legal guardians, relatives said. The parents are not allowed to have unsupervised visits for more than two hours, Bevan said.
Bevan said the Amber Alert helped raise awareness about the case.
"We really don't have all the answers right now, but I can tell you it was a large part due to the national Amber Alert," Bevan said.
He said after the alert was issued, deputies received information that the vehicle described in the Amber Alert, a blue 2014 Scion xB with Florida license plate AMLC10, may have been spotted in Missouri.
Deputies contacted the Hermann Police Department and coordinated with them to locate the child.
Bevan said he's glad the girl was found before the situation escalated.
“We didn’t want this to lead to a situation where they may have fled the country and crossed the border,” Bevan said.