Amber Alert hoax: Missing 4-year-old was hidden in Rock Island home during massive search, police say

A 4-year-old girl who was reported missing by her mother earlier this month, prompting a massive search in the Quad Cities, was safe inside her home during the entire search, Rock Island police announced Thursday.

Rock Island Police Chief Tim McCloud said Princess Ilunga lied to dispatchers and officers that her daughter was in the backseat of a car that was stolen from her driveway, prompting a statewide Amber Alert.

Ilunga made "every effort" to hide her daughter from police, McCloud said.

"From the moment the 911 call was made, our officers were lied to with the only thing being true was that the car had been stolen after she left it running," McCloud said. "I want to be clear that this is not just a big misunderstanding. This was not the result of a language barrier. From the minute our first responding officer arrived, Ms. Ilunga could have told the truth."

Timeline:

Princess Ilunga called 911 around 6 a.m. on Jan. 16 to report her car was stolen while her 4-year-old daughter was in the backseat.

When police arrived, Ilunga said she did not have any pictures of her daughter. Police had to contact the school district to get a picture of the girl to send out in an Amber Alert.

Ilunga, a mother of seven, spoke to police officers in English but instructed her children in Swahili to take off the 4-year-old's pink coat and to only refer to their sister by her Swahili name. Ilunga initially refused to let police search the house for her daughter, McCloud said. Police said the mother intentionally misled officers by saying the missing girl was actually her sister.

Body camera video showed Blessing inside the residence, no longer wearing the pink coat that she was described as wearing.

"This was, by all accounts, an intentional deception that wasted the time and resources of six local law enforcement agencies, the Illinois State Police, the FBI and the federal Marshals," McCloud said.

The Illinois State Police issued an Amber Alert for the missing girl. Six local law enforcement agencies, the FBI and U.S. Marshals, launched a massive search for Blessing. Over 120 officers were involved in the search, which included drones and thermal imaging.

Roughly 15 minutes later, the stolen car was found abandoned near 8th Street and 15th Avenue.

A detective who was assigned as a liaison for Ilunga briefly returned to the police station around 2:53 p.m.

"Ms. Ilunga seized her opportunity, put the pink coat back on [the 4-year-old], took her outside into the alley where she was found shortly thereafter by a citizen," McCloud said.

Rock Island police made five arrests in connection with the case, with four of the suspects being juveniles between the ages of 14 and 16.

What's next:

An arrest warrant has been issued for Ilunga for filing a false police report, a class 4 felony. McCloud said her current whereabouts are unknown.

McCloud said the kidnapping charge against the 16-year-old boy accused of driving the stolen car would be dropped.

The Source: The information in this story came from the Rock Island Police Department.

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