A New Jersey woman’s body was found in Tennessee on Saturday after she and her toddler son were reportedly abducted by the child’s father, according to authorities.
Officials issued an Amber Alert Friday once it appeared Tyler Rios, 27, had kidnapped Yasemin Uyar, 24, and their son, WPIX reported.
Authorities located the boy and Rios in Monterey, Tennessee, on Saturday but Uyar was still missing. Her body was later found in a wooded area off I-40, officials said Sunday.
Uyar’s mom, Karen Uyar, also confirmed her daughter’s body had been located and said she would go to Tennessee to be with her grandson.
“Police arrested Rios and preliminarily charged him with first-degree kidnapping, according to the Union County Prosecutor’s Office. He was expected to be extradited to New Jersey to face additional criminal charges in Union County Superior Court,” the WPIX article read.
The ordeal began Friday when the 24-year-old mother did not appear for work and the boy did not arrive at daycare, officials said.
Once an Amber Alert was issued, officers from multiple local, state, and federal agencies began searching for the two and believed Rios may have abducted them.
In an updated Facebook post the New Jersey State Police said the Amber Alert was canceled and Sebastian Rios had been located:
Karen Uyar told reporters Rios and her daughter had known one another since high school but had not been a couple since after their child was born, adding Rios assaulted her daughter multiple times and she had issued a restraining order against him.
“We tried really hard to get Yasemin to leave him but she was trying to co-parent with him and he often thought they were getting back together,” Karen Uyar explained.
“She was actually in the process of moving,” she said Friday. “We normally speak every day but I didn’t speak with her yesterday because she was busy packing and I didn’t want to bother.”