Missing Mother, Daughter Found in Virginia; Mother Charged with Parental Child Abduction

From the Harford County Sheriff’s Office:

[February 13, 2014, Edgewood, MD] — Harford County Sheriff’s detectives have now located the mother and 5 year-old daughter, the subject of an earlier news release, who left their home together on or about January 10, 2014 without telling anyone where they were going causing family members to report the disappearance to police describing the mother’s behavior as “out of character”.

Amanda Deeann Mitchell, 29, of the 2900 block of Siwanoy Drive in Edgewood, was taken into custody without incident by the Fairfax County (VA) Police Department who advised Harford County Sheriff’s detectives they had also located the child at a local elementary school. Sanaa Bailey, 5, was evaluated and found to be in good health. There were no signs of abuse or neglect. The child will be returned to her biological father. Mitchell has been charged with one count of parental child abduction. She is currently incarcerated in Fairfax County pending an extradition hearing.

Detectives say Mitchell failed to drop the child off for scheduled visitation with the father on January 17th. Family members told police that Amanda has been known to stay in homeless shelters from time to time but her failure to allow visitation with the child’s biological father was atypical behavior. Mitchell has shared custody with the child’s father, Aaron Chester Bailey of Baltimore.

Sheriff’s Detective Tom Walsh said, “She [Amanda] had left the family home with the bare essentials and had taken the child with her”. He further explained that while police fully understood she is a custodial parent, her behavior was out of the norm for how people described her. Walsh would not go into detail as to how Fairfax County PD came to locate Mitchell suffice it to say detectives ran down numerous leads and shared information about Mitchell throughout the region.