Authorities found 6-year-old Kiara Hsieh safe in La Marque, Texas, and deputies took James Dean Ramirez into custody after a statewide Amber Alert sent families across the Houston area searching for her. Kiara was being evaluated by EMS as a precaution and was expected to be reunited with her mother.

The alert had gone out at 5:50 a.m. Saturday after Kiara was last seen around 6:39 p.m. Friday in the 12300 block of 2nd Street in Dickinson, in Galveston County. Investigators identified Ramirez, 36, as the mother’s ex-boyfriend and not Kiara’s biological father, and filed kidnapping charges against him. Authorities said he was last known to be in the Galveston area and may have been driving a brown 2012 Ford Explorer with Texas license plate SVM5598.

The swift recovery brought relief to a case that had turned urgent before sunrise. The Amber Alert described Kiara as 4 feet 8 inches tall, 60 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes, and Ramirez as 5 feet 5 inches tall, 138 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes. In the hours after the child was found, the focus shifted from finding her to making sure she was safe and accounting for how she ended up separated from her mother in the first place.

That question remains open. Deputies said the case is still an active investigation, and the gap between Friday evening, when Kiara was last seen, and the moment she was located in La Marque has not been publicly explained. Mark Herman credited investigators and law enforcement partners for bringing the case to a safe resolution and urged anyone with information about Kiara or Ramirez to call 911 or local law enforcement.

For Kiara’s family, the immediate crisis is over. What investigators still have to sort out is the sequence that led to the kidnapping charges and the child’s disappearance in Dickinson before she was found safe in La Marque.