Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) holds a press briefing with members of the New York State Police after Charlotte Sena was found and her suspected kidnapper arrested.
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00:00 this gift to all of us and it is the people standing here with me that remind me why I'm
00:06 so proud to be the governor of this state. Incredible men and women who were relentless
00:11 in their pursuit of finding this little girl. Yesterday I held Charlotte's parents in my
00:18 arms. David and Trish, I went to the campsite. I saw the place that she had just been a joyful
00:26 little girl the day before riding her bike. I was on the road she rode her bike on. I
00:31 saw where she left it. Her parents were just so overcome with sadness and grief. As a parent
00:38 I thought my own heart was breaking and I said to them, "I promise you this, we will
00:47 bring Charlotte home to you." As each hour went on, hope faded because we were so close
00:54 to the end. We all know the stories, the first 24 hours there's hope, when you hit
01:01 48 hours, hope starts to wane. When Charlotte disappeared in Monroe State Park, it was every
01:09 parent's worst nightmare. I knew I would be able to have assembled a team of individuals
01:21 who would not stop. I want to thank at this moment the individuals gathered here tonight
01:28 and all the men and women across this state that they represent. The FBI brought in their
01:36 specialized, trained individuals all the way from Washington to help with this search.
01:43 I want to thank Deputy Superintendent Richard Allen, Lieutenant Colonel James Barnes, and
01:51 Lieutenant Colonel Richard Mazzone, Major Dennis Shager for their work. New York State
01:58 Park Police, Colonel Michael D'Adona, the Office of Parks and Historic Preservation
02:06 Chief of Staff Randy Simons, Saratoga County Sheriff's Department, Lieutenant Jeffrey O'Connor,
02:13 the Schenectady County Sheriff's Office represented by the Schenectady Police Department, Police
02:19 Department of Schenectady, Detective Sergeant Bradley Carlton, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
02:26 Acting Agent in Charge Alfred Watson, who I met yesterday on site, New York State Department
02:32 of Corrections and Community Services Acting Commissioner Daniel Marticello, New York State
02:38 Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers Basil Seggos. As I mentioned, when
02:44 you hit that 48-hour moment, you realize it's going to be tough and you start thinking the
02:51 worst. But what happened was extraordinary. The case started to break at 4.20 a.m. this
02:58 morning when the family's home that was being guarded by state police, when the parents
03:11 were still starting another day at the campsite where they'd last seen their daughter. 4.20
03:18 a.m. the car pulls up to a mailbox. Something is left. State police immediately go to the
03:26 mailbox and identify what is a ransom note that had been left behind for Charlotte. State
03:38 police worked diligently trying to find a match for a fingerprint. First one tried and
03:44 wasn't successful. Second one was to identify any other prints in the New York State database
03:50 that would be a match. The hit came at 2.30 in the afternoon. There had been a DWI in
04:01 1999 in the city of Saratoga. A fingerprint was found that matched what was found on the
04:08 ransom note. So, a little more research work to identify the location and identifying the
04:16 fact that there was a home they could visit. They found a double-wide house with a woman,
04:28 the suspect's mother. The suspect lived in the camper behind. They have what they call
04:35 a dynamic entry, a tactical maneuver, and within the camper they located the suspect.
04:43 After some resistance, the suspect was taken into custody and immediately the little girl
04:55 was found in a cabinet, cupboard. She was rescued. She knew she was being rescued. She
05:02 knew that she was in safe hands. Her parents were immediately notified. This occurred at
05:11 6.32 this evening. The suspect, a 47-year-old male named Chris, was taken to the hospital
05:22 and was transferred to a local hospital. The family wishes to reveal that they are united.
05:30 At this moment, charges have not been brought, but they are fully expected. The daughter
05:37 was transported to a local hospital as is customary. That's all the family wishes to
05:47 reveal at this time. They are united. She is in good hands. She appeared to be outwardly
05:57 physically unharmed at the time, but we'll leave the rest of this information about little
06:04 Charlotte to her family at a time they deem appropriate.
06:12 Often these stories don't end up like this. Every second is key. There's a lot of pressure.
06:18 Split decisions are made because you know not just the life is hanging in the balance,
06:25 but a little innocent child's life is hanging in the balance. So to the teams behind me,
06:32 you work quickly. You work with great urgency. You put it together, the puzzle pieces. You're
06:41 able to track down the location of Charlotte through technology, but ultimately it was
06:52 the two SWAT teams, one federal, one state, that landed in helicopters in Boston's spot
06:57 of rescue Charlotte.
07:04 Still pretty overwhelming because all of us feared the worst, but I promise Trish and
07:12 Dave they will be reunited with little Charlotte once again and she'll see her two sisters,
07:21 one ten, one four years old. Obviously it's a traumatic event for the family and certainly
07:28 Charlotte and we'll continue to keep this family in our prayers as they heal. But she'll
07:36 be going home. That's the story. Charlotte will be going home. That's all I have to say
07:47 on the details. Certainly there will be many more coming out with respect to the suspect
07:54 and how that case will proceed.
07:58 I want to thank the media for their intense interest and the 400 volunteers who would
08:05 not give up. 400 individuals from law enforcement, fire departments, city, county, state and
08:12 county. It was an awesome sight to witness up at the state park yesterday. Everyone doing
08:18 their job, but also there are a lot of parents out there among the ranks and everybody thinks
08:25 if it was my child I would want everybody under the sun looking for them. And that's
08:32 what this team did. So thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. You brought Charlotte
08:41 home. Any questions?
08:43 Why were Schenectady agencies involved in this case?
08:48 Charlotte Sunkle was a member of the police department in Schenectady. I understand if
08:51 that's not correct. Fire department.
08:53 Was the suspect known to the family?
08:59 It has not been determined that the suspect was known to the family.
09:10 That is what will be revealed after more extensive questioning. The vehicle registered to the
09:17 suspect. The address in the database was two miles from Charlotte's home, but it is not
09:24 known at this time whether he knew her or had her under surveillance for any length
09:28 of time.
09:29 Governor, can you say, you said a letter was delivered. Was it delivered by mail carrier
09:34 or was it delivered by a third party? Do you have that information at this panel?
09:37 It appears that it was by the suspect himself. That he literally drove up to the family's
09:44 mailbox, assuming they were not home, 420 in the morning, opens the mailbox and inserts
09:51 the ransom note, leaving the critical piece of evidence behind, his own fingerprint.
10:01 Was the car detailed or also taken into consideration at that point?
10:08 It happened very quickly. Obviously it's dark, 420 in the morning, so it's hard to get a
10:15 description of the vehicle, but there was some sense of the type of vehicle at the time
10:21 when they left, so as they're piecing together all the evidence, it came together when they
10:26 did the fingerprint match. It leads you to a name, it can lead you to a vehicle, and
10:31 that's why we know that he had a home, his mother's home is where he was found. Again,
10:36 double wide trailer, mother lives there, double wide home. He lives in a camper in the back,
10:41 or at least he was there, but he also had his name registered to a vehicle and the address
10:48 was a home two miles from where Charlotte lived.
10:51 And this just came out of nowhere, he just showed up at 430 in the morning?
10:58 Apparently so.
10:59 Have you spoken to Charlotte at all or Charlotte's family since you've been found?
11:06 I've made a number of inquiries to the family. This is a traumatic time for them as they're
11:11 going through, you know, her health, taking care of her health right now, and I'll be
11:17 speaking to the parents soon, as soon as I can.
11:19 You said there were some resistance with the suspect, can you elaborate a little more on that?
11:24 When we made the dynamic entry into the residence, he did give our SWAT operators, our SWAT people,
11:31 some resistance in there. He was taken into custody, he did suffer some very minor injuries,
11:36 but it was relatively minor, nothing big on the scuffle.
11:42 I just want to say there's still a lot of searches underway. The home that he was registered
11:47 to, a lot of information, so we want to make sure that he's not connected with any other
11:53 cases. So that's why it's still an ongoing investigation, but at this time there's no
11:58 evidence of that.
11:59 At the end of the search, what was the extent of the search in terms of the scope area that
12:06 investigators and searchers were looking at?
12:09 I'll let you answer, but...
12:11 Are you asking about at the park?
12:13 The scope beyond the park, I've heard reports that it was beyond the park as well.
12:17 The original scope of the ground search was within the park. The information we received
12:24 that took us to Ballston Spa was obviously outside the park. We had no ground search
12:29 operations going on outside the park other than leads we were running down that we were
12:33 developing throughout the two days.
12:35 Great, thank you.
12:36 We're not going to disclose that.
12:39 What were some of the biggest takeaways from this massive search?
12:44 I would say the biggest thing is, you look at all these people behind us, it's cooperation
12:50 of all the agencies. We don't work in silos, we have to work together to accomplish something
12:55 like this. And you can never be too careful with your kids. Pay attention to where they're
13:00 at, what they're doing. Things can happen in an instant. Charlotte was no more than
13:06 probably two-tenths of a mile from where she was camping in a small area, and she was gone
13:12 for, for her to ride her bike around that loop would take her about four minutes, five
13:17 minutes. You know, so you think they're safe doing that at nine years old, but you just
13:22 got to be cognizant and be paying attention to things around you, your surroundings all
13:25 the time. You know, these things happen in a hurry, and fortunately today this ended
13:30 in the right way.
13:31 Will there be any idea of a motive?
13:34 Will there be any security protocols, I believe, over at the park?
13:39 We'll be doing an after-action report to identify any areas where the state parks can
13:45 make any improvements, but obviously this is a very random incident, and basically anyone
13:51 who comes in and out of that park will come through a certain entryway. Their name is,
13:57 they purchase a ticket, you have their name in the database, so that is why that's also
14:02 helpful to identify who's in the park. So that's also in a sense a security measure,
14:07 because we always know who's in the park.
14:09 Did the suspect enter through the main gate?
14:11 We don't have any, we don't know how the, how many gates.
14:14 Did you shoot a helicopter? Was the arrest affected by the helicopter going to the ground?
14:19 The arrest wasn't done by helicopter. Because of the seriousness of this incident, we brought
14:26 in SWAT operators from throughout the state, and to expedite this, because obviously it
14:31 was very time-sensitive, we flew about 10 of our SWAT operators from downstate to be
14:37 here to help with this entry. We had probably, we normally operate about 6 or 8 people on
14:41 a team, we had probably 20 SWAT operators make this entry with an FBI regional SWAT
14:47 team.
14:48 Tell them what the SWAT stands for.
14:49 What SWAT stands for is our Special Operations Response Team. They are, like most agencies
14:55 have a SWAT team, we do that type of thing with our SWAT operators, they're full-time
14:59 in that capacity, but they also do other things that normal SWAT teams don't do. We respond
15:04 to high-angle rescue and different things with that team. They're a highly trained,
15:08 highly capable unit that we use for just this type of thing. This is what they train for,
15:13 this is what they live for, is to make entries like this and save someone's life.
15:17 Alright, thank you everybody, appreciate it.
15:19 I have two questions. Does this affect how AMRA alerts are sent out? Is there a delay
15:25 this time to the 11th or after the 9th? Is it marked back open tomorrow?
15:30 We'll already back you on that. I would assume it'll probably be back open, but we'll make
15:34 sure.
15:35 Any updates tomorrow that we should be aware of?
15:38 When we have more information, we'll have updates on our website and on our Zoom.
15:43 Any press conferences we should be aware of tomorrow?
15:46 With this tonight, probably not, but we'll let you know if we decide to do something,
15:49 if we have more information that we can do. This is an ongoing, active investigation,
15:54 so we have a lot of work to do this week.
15:56 Were police present at the home when the ring was dropped?
16:00 They were in the area. They were in the area, they were not able to get the vehicle.
16:06 call the OHS.