A girl who was abducted as a 4-year-old by her mother and taken to Mexico in April 2021 has been returned to her father in Smyrna, federal officials said Tuesday.
The girl was abducted during a supervised visit with Andrea McCord, who did not have legal custody of her, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The visit took place at the Smyrna home where the girl lived with her father, James Williams. While McCord spent time with her daughter, Williams went outside to work in the yard, according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Eventually, Williams realized that McCord and his daughter were no longer at the house, the NCMEC statement said. Later, McCord texted Williams to tell him his car was parked at a nearby grocery store with the keys underneath the seat.
Williams reported the abduction to Smyrna police, but McCord and her boyfriend, Custodio Guerra, had already disappeared with the child, the Marshals Service said. Investigators took out arrest warrants against the couple and began searching for the missing girl.
When she was not immediately recovered, Smyrna police requested the help of U.S. marshals. Investigators with the federal agency said they were eventually able to track McCord, Guerra and the child to the state of San Luis Potosi in central Mexico, more than 200 miles north of Mexico City.
On Saturday, Mexican law enforcement officials arrested McCord and Guerra in the town of Rioverde, the federal agency said. They immediately turned the suspects and the now-6-year-old girl over to U.S. authorities.
One day later, the girl was reunited with Williams at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Photos show the girl with her arms wrapped tightly around her father’s neck.
“Words cannot express how happy I am to have my daughter back home,” Williams said in a statement.
He said his daughter was doing well but asked for privacy as she readjusts to life at home.
“Helping the community and assisting the Smyrna police is an honor,” U.S. Marshal Thomas Brown said. “From the moment we took the case, we knew we would successfully rescue the child and bring the wrongdoers to justice.”
McCord and Guerra were taken into custody at the airport Sunday by the Cobb County Sheriff’s Office.
Both were booked into the Cobb Adult Detention Center, and Guerra was released Monday on a $15,000 bond, online jail records show. McCord remains in jail on a $5,000 bond. Both are facing one felony count of interfering with custody, according to jail records.
“This young victim is now back where she belongs, in the arms of her father,” Brown said.
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