UPDATED WEB EXTRA!

"We would like to express our appreciation for the prayers, neighborhood canvassing, and support of our church, neighbors, friends, and Troop 20 boy scouts when our daughter went missing last Saturday. We are very thankful for Rick Martin and the Jasiak family and their assistance to our daughter. We would also like to commend the Oak Park police department for their timely and massive response. This is a great community!!"

Police release kidnap suspect description

Posted Monday
Oak Park police released a description of the man they're looking for in connection with the kidnapping of a six-year-old girl Saturday afternoon.

The suspect is believed to be a white male, 25 to 40 years old, of average height and weight, with an oval-shaped face and brown hair. He was driving a red, four-door vehicle with gray or white interior.

Anyone with any information concerning the individual sought by police is urged to call Oak Park's crime tip hotline at 708.434.1636.

Posted Saturday
A six-year-old Oak Park girl who had been the subject of an intense search by Oak Park police and Cook County K-9 units after disappearing from her back yard Saturday was found alone and unharmed on the city's northwest side Saturday afternoon.

Police are currently questioning the girl, and are looking to speak with a postal worker who found her alone and shoeless near Harlem and Belmont Avenues. The girl's father, who reported her missing around 12:15 p.m., told police he had last seen her just after noon Saturday, playing in the family's back yard in the 600 block of Wesley Avenue. More than 20 Oak Park officers, assisted by Cook County K-9 units and fire department personnel, canvassed the area around the girl's home.

Around 2 p.m., as Oak Park police were going door to door re-canvassing the area with color photos of the girl, Chicago postal carrier Rich Martin was approached by the girl near Harlem and Belmont Avenues. Martin, who was working his delivery route at the time, took the girl to the home of his neighbors and friends, Linda and Robert Jasiak in the 3300 block of Osage Avenue.

Linda Jasiak, who described the girl as "a little scared but not hysterical," said when she asked the girl what had happened, she at first said that she was "in a car and had been forgotten." However, after some milk and a donut, the girl told Jasiak that she was playing in her sand box in her back yard when a man stopped and told her he'd "teach her something" if she went with him. Jasiak said the girl said the man also told her that he knew her mommy and daddy.

The girl told Jasiak that the man later pulled his car over near Harlem and Belmont, pointed to Martin and told her to "go tell that postal worker that we're lost." The girl got out and walked over to Martin, but when she turned around, the car and the man were gone.

Jasiak said when she asked the girl if she was scared while in the car, she answered, "Not really." The man, the girl said, didn't hurt her.

The girl knew her address in Oak Park, but not her phone number. When the girl told Jasiak that she had seven brothers and sisters, including a 20 year old brother, Jasiak's 20 year old son then suggested that they check on MySpace. When that turned up three photos of a young man, they asked the girl if he was her brother. She said she thought so, and using information on the brother's MySpace site, Jasiak's son then found information on two people with the same initials and last name as the girl's parents. Jasiak called the phone number listed with the names, and a woman who answered the phone.

"Are you missing a child?" Jasiak asked. The woman, she said, immediately screamed and started crying. "You could tell in her voice, it was like she'd won the lottery," said Jasiak, who put the little girl on the phone to talk with her tremendously relieved mother.

Oak Park police then got Jasiak's address and sent detectives to the house.

Just after 4 p.m. a squad car pulled up outside the girl's house and the girl was swept up into her father's arms.

The girl appeared well and was smiling as she exited the house later to go to a waiting police car to be taken to the hospital for an examination.

See the July 4 Wednesday Journal for more details on this story.