Girl abducted in New Kent found safe in South Carolina

An 11-year-old North Carolina girl, allegedly abducted Sunday afternoon by her father from Cumberland Hospital for Children and Adolescents in New Kent County where she was a patient, has been found safe in South Carolina.

Alexis Cartwright, who is diabetic and requires twice daily insulin injections, is reported to be in good condition after being examined at a South Carolina hospital.

Police in Manning, S.C., a small town on Interstate 95 about 45 miles east of the capital city of Columbia and 70 miles south the North Carolina line, arrested the father, Lemuel R. Cartwright, as he walked out of a CVS pharmacy after having an insulin prescription filled for his daughter. The girl was found seated in her father’s pickup truck in the pharmacy’s parking lot.

Cartwright, 55, is being held by federal authorities and is due in federal court in South Carolina today (Thursday). He faces abduction and child neglect charges in New Kent.

Since the girl was taken, authorities had been tracking the father electronically through his cell phone and credit/debit card use in eastern North and South Carolina, but they could never pinpoint a location and move in to intercept.

“The way he was driving, there way no pattern to it. He was all over the place,” New Kent Sheriff F.W. “Wakie” Howard Jr. said.

Knowing the girl’s insulin needs, authorities also alerted pharmacies in the region, and that move paid off.

Shortly after 3 p.m. yesterday (Wednesday), a CVS pharmacist in Washington, N.C. called the Manning pharmacy, making sure that location had received the law enforcement alert as well as the father’s description, Howard said.

“The pharmacist [in Manning] asked what does he look like,” the sheriff said. “After hearing the description, the pharmacist said he’s standing here right now and paying for a prescription.”

The pharmacist alerted police, who arrived in time to arrest the father without incident in the parking lot.

In tracking the father, investigators learned he had purchased spray paint in an attempt to change the color of the blue pickup he was driving and had bought shaving supplies to remove his beard and moustache.

“He had attempted to spray paint the truck white, but it looked more like a primer,” Howard said.

The girl, who has been a patient at Cumberland since early November, disappeared around 3 p.m. last Sunday when her father, a resident of Bath County, N.C., was visiting.

At the time, authorities feared for the worst due to the girl’s insulin needs. Howard noted concerns about the father’s mental stability and inability to care for the child.

The FBI and National Center for Missing and Exploited Children teamed with law enforcement in New Kent and both Carolinas to assist in the search. Authorities in the Carolinas issued an “Amber Alert.”

The girl was placed in Cumberland for treatment of undisclosed medical needs by North Carolina Social Services authorities who have custody. Neither of the girls’ parents have custody, Howard said, adding that the mother, who also resides in North Carolina, was not involved in the girl’s disappearance.

Howard said the father had been in the New Kent area for several days before the incident and had visited the girl on more than one occasion.

“There is no court order prohibiting him from visiting her,” he said. “He had been there before and there had been no prior behavior to indicate he’d try to abduct her and take her away. But from our investigation, it looks like he planned to do this before he left to come up to visit her.”

Lt. Chris Hamlet and Deputy Farrar Howard III handled the investigation from the New Kent end.