Police in Alabama say they’re now on the lookout for another “person of interest” in the race to find Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney, the 3-year-old child abducted while playing with other children at an outdoor birthday party.
Kamille went missing last Saturday, Oct. 12, on the grounds of a housing complex in Birmingham, Ala. As the CBS Evening News With Norah O’Donnell reports, police say they believe the last image of Kamille:
is from a video showing her outside an apartment complex with another toddler. According to police, in the video, the two are playing when a man passes by.
But police are focused on a second man who walks by. They said he appears to talk to the children before they follow him away.
Birmingham police tweeted this footage from the surveillance video in question:
“We’re trying to identify the first guy. We believe he may have been a witness to something,” Birmingham Police Sgt. Johnny Williams told NBC News. “We want him to come forward.”
“It’s the second male that comes up and engages the children,” Birmingham Police Chief Patrick Smith told the news network. “And so the first male who walks by in this video, he may have pertinent information that will help us.”
As for the second male, police referred to him, not as a suspect, but a potential “person of interest.”
The search for the small child has made national news, and involves local and state police agencies, as well as the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, Crime Stoppers and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, NBC News reports. Another massive on-the-ground search for Kamille is planned for Sunday.
As Saturday will mark one full week since Kamille was kidnapped, searchers have experienced some false hope over the last few days.
On Wednesday, news went out that the child had been found, but it turned out authorities had come upon a girl who resembled Kamille, but was not her.
Two people, a man and woman, were taken into custody early on, one day after Kamille went missing, but authorities have since said they had nothing to do with the child’s disappearance, as WVTM reports.
Now, hopes are pegged to finding the man or men who appear in the latest surveillance video.
“I don’t believe that a lot of planning went into it. I think it was maybe something done impromptu,” Police Chief Smith said, according to CBS News. “In my heart, I believe that she is in and around the area and we are hoping to bring her home safely.”