JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville family’s frantic overnight search ended with relief Monday morning when a missing 3-year-old girl was found safe in Northwest Jacksonville and reunited with her mother.
The child had last been seen at her babysitter’s on Ken Knight Drive around 2:30 p.m. Sunday. According to the girl’s mother and aunt, that’s when the child’s grandfather, 49-year-old Jamall Mayfield, took the girl from the babysitter’s apartment without permission.
Recommended Videos
Jamya Mayfield, the girl’s mother, asked us not to name the child now that she’s been found safe. She thanked everyone who helped in the search.
“I’m feeling relieved. I got my baby back,” Jamya said after holding her child again Monday morning. “Thank the Lord my baby’s OK.”
She told News4JAX that when the girl’s grandfather showed up at the babysitter’s apartment, he was intoxicated. The family said he doesn’t drive and is hard of hearing, so when the babysitter alerted Jamya to what happened, Jamya and the girl’s aunt, Erquandra Collier, immediately came to the area and tried to look for the girl and Jamall.
“I knocked door-to-door, canvassing hotels where they said that he had been. I have been knocking on every door everywhere. Nothing. I just want my baby home,” Jamya said during her scary ordeal.
When they could not find the pair after about two or three hours, they called the police.
After searching all night, the girl was found safe Monday morning at an apartment complex on Cleveland Road, about 5 minutes away from the babysitter’s place. Her grandfather was with her.
Jamya said she now knows her father took her daughter to a park, where he ran into a friend he hadn’t seen in a while, Katie Smith.
Smith, who was at the park with her 1-year-old, invited the pair to her home at Vista Landing Apartments because it was hot and she could tell they didn’t have anywhere to go, she said.
Smith later told the 3-year-old’s family she had no idea that Jamall had the girl without permission.
“She didn’t know,” Jamya confirmed.
Smith said she fed the 3-year-old and let her watch cartoons and play with her 1-year-old and her 6-month-old.
“She was playing with my kids all day so I didn’t know anything was suspicious,” Smith said, explaining that her husband is friends with the girl’s grandfather but she had never met the girl’s mother.
In the end, Jamya herself stumbled across just the right person as she searched for her daughter.
Jamya said after she and her family extended their search to more area apartments on Monday morning, she ran into a woman outside the Vista Landing Apartments around 7:30 a.m.
She showed the woman a photo of her daughter, and the woman said the girl looked familiar. When Jamya showed her a more recent photo, the woman told her: “Oh, she’s upstairs in my house right now.”
It turned out the woman Jamya met was Smith’s mother, who shares the apartment with Smith.
When the woman told her daughter what was happening, Smith immediately told the girl’s grandfather to leave and took the girl outside to reunite with her mother.
Jamya said she cried, held her daughter tight and told her that her mommy had been looking for her.
Jamya indicated when her daughter was still missing that she would not press charges as long her daughter was returned.
“I don’t have any problems with him. I don’t want anything harmful happening to him. I don’t even want police to take him to jail if that is what he’s afraid of,” she said at the time. “Just bring my baby. That’s all. Just bring my baby because you had no right to take my baby. No permission to take my baby.”
After the child was found, the grandfather gave police his ID and was placed inside a dark gray Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office SUV. It’s unclear if he was taken into custody or arrested. JSO said only that the case is still under investigation.
After her child was returned, Jamya said whatever investigators do to her father, they do. All she wanted was to get some food and some sleep now that her family was back together.
“I don’t care, as long as I got my baby,” she said. “Mama’s tired.”