Mother of kidnapped New York girl rescued within 47 hours reflects on the year since terrifying disappearance

While on a camping trip with her family last year to upstate New York in early October, Trisha Sena experienced every parent’s worst nightmare.

On October 3, 2023 – a Saturday – Sena’s children were riding their bikes on a loop around the lake at Moreau Lake State Park when her 9-year-old daughter, Charlotte, disappeared.

“In short, the role is that you go in pairs. You are not allowed to go alone. They were riding bikes and wanted to come back,” Sena told Fox News Digital. “And Charlotte said, ‘I’ll go again.’ She didn’t tell anyone. Everyone stopped and she kept pedaling. Unfortunately, someone was waiting on the other side of the loop.

Unknown to Charlotte, a man stopped her and asked her for help carrying something into the back of his truck. She replied – as instructed by her parents – that he was an adult and could do it himself.

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“We talked about it with our children – that adults don’t ask children for help. They ask other adults,” Sena said. “And he replied, ‘My hands are too big. I can’t reach them in the back of the truck». So she decided to help him. At that point he pushed her into the back of his truck and drove past our campsite with Charlotte in the back… and she was gone for 47 hours.

When Sena realized that her daughter was missing, which didn’t last long, she immediately called the police, instinctively knowing that something was terribly wrong.

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“In situations like this, every minute and every second counts when it comes to response times,” she said.

The following Monday at approximately 4:20 a.m., state police were observing Sena’s home when they witnessed a suspicious man drive up to the house and drop something into the family’s mailbox. It was a ransom note.

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The police immediately collected the note, checked fingerprints and reviewed the details of the vehicle. The fingerprint on the note matched a fingerprint in their system from a 1999 DWI arrest in Saratoga County.

The services quickly managed to identify and arrest the suspect. Later that Monday, tactical teams raided his mother’s double trailer in Milton, near Saratoga Springs, where they located the suspect and Charlotte.

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“The little girl was immediately found in a covered cupboard. She was saved,” Gov. Kathy Hochul said during a news conference at the time.

The year since Charlotte’s kidnapping has been the “most difficult year” of Sena’s life, but her family is working hard to move on and stay positive, she added.

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“I could sit here and say it was a terrible year and the hardest year of my life. But as a family we have made great progress. “Charlotte has made great progress,” she said.

Sena and her sister Jené Sena – Charlotte’s aunt – turned a terrifying moment that shook their entire family into a source of hope and change for families going through similar situations involving missing and exploited children. They currently co-host the podcast “Sisterhood of the Survivors,” where they “share personal stories of how they are recovering from the traumatic event that followed, as well as the stories of others,” according to the show’s description.

The Sena sisters also advocated for common-sense updates to state and national Amber Alert laws, as well as for New York State’s Child Survivor Privacy Act, which aims to shorten and facilitate the path to justice for victims of child abuse.

The bill requires the FBI to “use a multidisciplinary team to investigate child molestation and related crimes” and “reauthorizes grants for Child Advocacy Centers (CACs)” that “use an interdisciplinary approach to coordinate investigations, treatment, and prosecution children” cases of abuse,” according to a summary of the regulations.

It also requires “the FBI to use a multidisciplinary team in any investigation involving the sexual exploitation or abuse of children, the production of child sexual abuse material, or the trafficking of children” and requires the agency to “use a trained child forensic interviewer in these investigations.” and youth. “

Trisha Sena noted that her daughter had to tell her story three times, forcing the 9-year-old to relive the trauma “even though there was a million pieces of evidence” so that prosecutors could obtain the needed testimony to bring the suspect in her case to justice.

“Basically you have to prove that someone committed a crime against you, even if there is DNA evidence, maybe someone saw you being taken away, whatever the case,” Trisha Sena said. “…I feel like as a whole we need to do a better job of protecting these children.”

She noted that telling stories about abuse may discourage some children from talking about their experiences.

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Additionally, Trisha and Jené advocate for harsher sentences for perpetrators of child abuse.

“We actually… had a meeting with some important people in the governor’s office… and we said, ‘Can we do something about this?’ “What I mean is that these people who commit crimes against children will be released within six months or released early. … And putting them back on the street does not protect our children,” Jené said.

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Trisha noted that her daughter will have to live with what happened when she was 9 years old “for the rest of her life,” while child abusers, like the man in her case, have the chance to be released from prison after serving his sentence.

“It’s just inappropriate,” Trisha said.

Craig Nelson Ross was 47 years old at the time of his arrest. Although he could have served 111 years for the crimes he was accused of, he was sentenced to 47 years as part of a plea deal.