The child was taken Jan. 14 from an elementary school, after the woman said she was the child's mother, police report.
A 19-year-old day care worker was charged in the abduction of a 5-year-old girl from her Philadelphia elementary school, an arrest aided by the little girl's report to police that there was a talking bird in the home where she was taken, authorities said.
Special Victims Unit Capt. John Darby says Christina Regusters was charged Thursday night with kidnapping, conspiracy, aggravated assault, rape, and other offenses. She was one of four people questioned Thursday who live in a home several blocks from Bryant Elementary School in west Philadelphia. The other three were released.
Regusters worked at an after-school care program attended by the victim, who was taken out of her classroom Jan. 14 by a woman posing as her mother, Darby said. The woman said she was coming to take the girl out to breakfast, according to school officials, who said school policies were not followed in releasing the child.
After she was abducted, authorities said, the girl was blindfolded, told to remove her clothes and put on a black, adult-sized T-shirt, and ordered to hide under a bed. She was apparently dumped about 18 hours later at a park about a mile from her school, just outside the city, and was found by a passer-by, shivering under playground equipment and wearing only a T-shirt.
Police have since taken her to places around the neighborhood as they search for clues.
"The investigation is very much active and ongoing," Darby said at a news conference Thursday.