A store owner in North Carolina has found little Kayla Unbehaun. Six years after her mother Heather abducted the nine-year-old girl, she has been found.
BREAKING NEWS ‼️
NCMEC is excited to share that Kayla Unbehaun has been FOUND SAFE in North Carolina!
Kayla was only 9 years old when she was abducted by her non-custodial mother, Heather Unbehaun from South Elgin, Illinois on July 5, 2017. Kayla’s dad, Ryan asked NCMEC to… pic.twitter.com/5O7bpEjIhT
— National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (@MissingKids) May 16, 2023
The surprising part of the story is how the store owner located Kayla. She did so thanks to “Unsolved Mysteries,” the Netflix show dedicated to investigating unsolved cases. The store owner said that she had seen the episode dedicated to the nine-year-old girl. Days later, she saw a young woman who looked like her at a mall in Asheville, N.C., 684 miles from where the girl disappeared six years ago.
She couldn't get the resemblance out of her head and decided to alert the authorities who intervened and discovered that the girl, now 15, was indeed Kayla. She is now in the custody of her father, who has been searching for her for six years while her mother, Heather, has been arrested.
UPDATE: Kayla Unbehaun's mother released from jail
Kayla's mother, Heather Unbenhaum, turned herself in to police the same day authorities found the girl. She was held for several days at the Buncombe County Detention Center in North Carolina. There she was held on $250,000 bail. She made the payment and has been free on bail since last Tuesday, May 16. She is due to appear in court on July 11 on charges of child abduction.
