PITTSBURGH (CNN NEWSOURCE) – Authorities in Pennsylvania have issued an Amber Alert for the missing toddler and a woman has been charged in the little girl’s disappearance.
It’s been an incredibly emotional and difficult couple of days for Taji Walsh who just wants to know where her granddaughter, Nalani Johnson, is.
“I just float through my day. I don’t know. I try not to think because that takes me to a place where I don’t – I don’t really want to go,” Taji Walsh, Nalani’s grandmother, said.
The toddler disappeared Saturday evening after her dad got out of a car driven by a woman, Sharena Nancy, on Bryant Drive in Penn Hills.
According to the criminal complaint, when he went to get Nalani out of her car seat, Nancy took off with her still inside the car.
An Amber Alert went out and two and a half hours later, Nancy was pulled over on Rodey Road in Penn Hills.
She was arrested but Nalani and the car seat were nowhere to be found.
According to court paperwork, Nancy told investigators she sold the toddler for $10,000, something she claimed was set up by Nalani’s father.
“Everybody’s losing sleep over this, money is being put towards this as a reward for her return safely. We just want our baby back home,” Paul Johnson, father, said.
Nancy claims she gave the toddler to two women in a silver SUV with out-of-state plates on the side of the road.
But investigators have found no evidence of the SUV or the transfer.
Nalani’s grandmother and father aren’t commenting on the investigation but are actively searching for their child.
“She’s a sweet child. I think her laugh and she run around from you and, we just want her to come back home,” Walsh said.