A 5-year-old reported kidnapped from Carson City was found safe in California on June 1 after an AMBER Alert was activated, and Christopher Meithof is now in custody. The child was recovered in Palmdale after a cross-state search that pulled in local, state and federal agencies.

The recovery came after deputies in Carson City were called to the 2000 block of Loan Mountain Street around 3:30 p.m. on May 31 for what began as a child custody dispute. A woman told investigators she had let Meithof stay overnight so he could visit their 5-year-old child, then woke up Sunday morning to find both of them gone, setting off a search that quickly moved beyond Nevada.

Investigators said patrol deputies reviewed local traffic and Flock camera information and traced Meithof’s red Jeep Grand Cherokee southbound on Highway 395, passing old Clear Creek Road at 4:36 a.m. Deputies tried to reach him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. By early afternoon on June 1, the U.S. Marshal’s Pacific Southwest Fugitive Task Force, Homeland Security Investigations’ Los Angeles Division and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Major Crimes Bureau had pulled the case into Palmdale, where a traffic stop around 2:15 p.m. recovered the missing child.

Sheriff’s officials said the child was safe and unharmed, but Meithof was not with the child when the recovery was made. He was located and arrested at a nearby residence without incident, a detail that leaves unanswered why the child was separated from him in California even as the search had already narrowed in on his vehicle and location.

Meithof is being held at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Palmdale station pending extradition to Nevada, while Palmdale Child Protective Services is helping arrange the child’s return to her mother. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Bruce Pendragon at 775-283-7856. For a family swept into an Amber Alert Las Vegas search that crossed state lines, the immediate question has been answered: the child was found alive, and the case now turns to how it started and what led to the arrest.