Amber Alert helps aware 911 caller spot missing baby

"I am calling from Emporia, Virginia about an Amber Alert and I may have seen the person with the child," the caller said. “The driver side door handle (is) missing and that is the vehicle that we've spotted.”

The caller knew authorities were searching for a white Suzuki XL7 after an Amber Alert was issued Friday. The driver, Robert Bryant, took his 10-month-old daughter Tamiyah after he and the baby's mother were arguing, police said. 

The fighting started at the couple's home in Angier, police said. Bryant then drove the mother, Elssy Olivares, to work at an IHOP restaurant in Garner. When she tried to get out the car, he forcefully held her and eventually made her get out on the side of Interstate 40 in Durham, police said. 

When he drove off, Bryant threatened to kill himself and the baby, authorities said.

The caller, who received the Amber Alert while driving through North Carolina, spotted the vehicle on Saturday while at a McDonalds parking lot in Emporia.

“He has got the car started, running,” the caller said. “Um, I can’t see if the child is in the car though.”

The little girl was in the car and was reunited with her mother.

Bryant was arrested and charged by Garner police with first-degree kidnapping, assault on a female and communicating threats. He was charged by Durham police on Monday with assault on a female, communicating threats and larceny of a motor vehicle.

Bryant remained in a Virginia jail Monday night. Authorities are working to bring him back to North Carolina.

In 2013, 28 Amber Alerts were requested statewide:

- 11 met the criteria for an alert

- 10 subjects were recovered

- 1 was a hoax

- Durham, with 3 alerts, had the most statewide