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Amber Alert cancelled after baby found safe in Randolph County

Police in Danville, Virginia confirmed Tuesday that 7-month-old Emma Kennedy has been found safe.

Posted Updated

By
Jessica Patrick & Hannah Webster
, WRAL.com editors
DANVILLE, VIRGINIA — Police in Danville, Virginia confirmed Tuesday that 7-month-old Emma Kennedy, who was the subject of an Amber Alert, has been found safe.

Emma was found in Randolph County, North Carolina, and her father, Carl Ray Kennedy, has been arrested, police said.

Police said Emma appears to be in good health and is being evaluated at a local hospital. Her mother has been notified.

Emma Grace Kennedy is described as a white female, approximately 2 feet 2 inches tall, weighing 18 pounds. She has blonde hair and and blue eyes.

Police issued an Amber Alert early Monday for Emma, last seen with her father, Carl Kennedy, traveling east from 4912 Riverside Drive in Danville, saying she was believed to be in "extreme danger."

Officers in Danville were actively searching all of North Carolina and Virginia on Tuesday morning.

Carl Ray Kennedy

Carl Kennedy is described a 51-year-old white male standing 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighing 170 pounds. He has gray hair and green eyes and was last seen wearing a brown T-shirt, gray shorts, and black and white Sketchers. Kennedy has a pierced left ear and numerous tattoos on both arms.

Emma Grace Kennedy is described as a white female, approximately 2 feet 2 inches tall, weighing 18 pounds. She has blonde hair and and blue eyes. At the time of her abduction, she was wearing a light blue onesie with dots and a white rabbit on the left leg and a matching headband. Emma has a small scar on her left cheek.

In an image from video provided by the Danville, Va., Police Department from a gas station surveillance camera, a man believed to be Carl Ray Kennedy snatches an infant from a car outside a Kwik Stop.

Police said Kennedy kidnapped the child from her mother at knifepoint on Sunday at a gas station.

Kristen Murphy, Emma's mom, said she broke off her three-year relationship with Kennedy in March after he was arrested on drug charges. According to Murphy, Kennedy said he was out of jail and asked to meet her at the gas station on Sunday.

"In hopes of him leaving me alone, I went to go meet him," she said.

Murphy said Kennedy tried to get into her car, hitting her and attempting to stab her, before he took off with Emma. Murphy says, with his criminal history, she believes Emma's life is in danger.

"He has nothing left to lose now," she said. "I feel like he would hurt Emma. He is just gonna either disappear or I'm never gonna see her again, because he's gonna harm her. I think he is that sick."

According to the N.C. Bureau of Investigation, Kennedy, who once had an Asheboro, North Carolina address, is a registered sex offender.

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