An 11-year-old Orlando girl will be reunited with parents after a 24-year-old Illinois man who persuaded her to meet him and lured her into his car was arrested in Macon, Ga., Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said Monday.
John Byrns was arrested Sunday after police found him in a Holiday Inn Express hotel room with the girl.
Byrns will face charges of kidnapping a child under 13 years old and could face more as the investigation continues, Demings said.
Byrns first made contact with the child through an online video game platform.
Posing as a young girl, he chatted with the girl and persuaded her to meet him near her home, police said. The two then traveled to Macon, where they stopped at the hotel.
Police were first notified about a missing child Sunday morning, after the girl’s parents say she disappeared overnight.
Demings said the child did not appear to have been physically harmed.
“She’s lucky to be alive,” Demings said at a press conference Monday. “This is the best outcome we could have hoped for.”
Police tracked the victim’s phone to an area in west Bibb County in Georgia where Byrns’ car was located shortly thereafter.
Orange County Sheriff’s Office reported the girl as an endangered runaway at about 9 a.m. Sunday.
“We don’t want this situation to repeat itself,” Demings said. “It should scare all of us,” he said.
Demings said Byrns is not a registered sex offender.
The FBI, Orange County Sheriff and Bibb County Sheriff in Georgia worked on the case.
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