Santa Barbara – On the evening of August 3rd, The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children issued an Amber Alert from Santa Barbara to the Mexican border pursuant to a report that Nayeli Martinez, a 6-month old female had been abducted following what Santa Barbara Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Riley Harwood described as “an incident of domestic violence.”
The Amber Alert specifically identified the infant’s father, Joshua Ivan Martinez, 28, as the principal suspect in her abduction, and gave great detail as to his physical appearance and the vehicle he was driving. Martinez, according to Harwood, was immediately suspected of having fled to the San Diego area en route to Mexico.
Exactly 24 hours later, U.S. Justice Department investigators working in concert with local police had located Martinez by “pinging” his cellphone, and shortly thereafter located his vehicle. At 8:20 p.m. August 4th, San Diego Police Department SWAT teams located both father and daughter “in a mobile home in San Ysidro, California, near the Mexican border,” at which time Martinez was taken into custody without incident and booked into San Diego County Jail on charges of spousal battery, kidnapping, and child endangerment, with his bail set at $150,000.
Nayeli Martinez
While Martinez was promptly processed for extradition back to Santa Barbara, his daughter was been “placed in the care of a San Diego emergency youth shelter,” until she can be reunited with her mother.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara Police
Read more:
CBS-SF: 6-month-old girl taken from Santa Barbara found
7SanDiego: Missing baby found in San Ysidro
